Dr Catherine Grant is Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art and Vice-Dean for Education at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She joined The Courtauld in 2022, after previously working at Goldsmiths, University of London, 2010-2022. She is an art historian who researches feminist and queer histories in contemporary art, as well as exploring the creative possibilities of writing contemporary art history. Previous research projects have included the exploration of girlhood in contemporary art and photography, creative writing and art history, the intersections between queer theory, psychoanalysis and feminism, and fandom as methodology. Her publications include “A Time of One’s Own: histories of feminism in contemporary art” (Duke, 2022); “Fandom as Methodology” (co-edited with Kate Random Love, Goldsmiths Press, 2019) and “Creative Writing and Art History” (co-edited with Patricia Rubin, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). She is a co-founder of the research groups “Group Work: contemporary art and feminism” and “Animating Archives“. She is on the Advisory Board of the Women’s Art Library, London.
Teaching
Catherine teaches on the BA History of Art and the MA History of Art. Her MA special option is “Telling Stories: performing identities and histories in art (1970 to the present)”. She supervises PhD research on recent feminist and queer art in the North American and British context. She is interested in the legacies of feminism and the intersection between creative and critical modes of writing contemporary art histories.
Selected Research
Books
A Time of One’s Own: Histories of Feminism in Contemporary Art, Duke University Press, 2022
Edited Collections
“Decolonizing Art History”, a questionnaire co-edited with Dorothy Price, special section of Art History, vol. 43, issue 1, February 2020
Fandom as Methodology: a sourcebook for artists and writers, co-edited with Kate Random Love, Goldsmiths Press, 2019
Creative Writing and Art History, co-edited with Patricia Rubin, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 [originally published as a special issue of the journal Art History, April 2011] read the introduction here
Girls! Girls! Girls! in contemporary art, co-edited with Lori Waxman, Intellect, 2011
Recent articles
Introduction to Linda Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, Thames and Hudson, 2021
“A Letter Sent, Waiting to be Received: queer correspondence, feminism and Black British Art”, in Women: A Cultural Review, vol. 30, no. 3, 2019
“The Graveyards of Community Gathering: archiving lesbian and feminist life in London”, Inside Killjoy’s Kastle: Dykey Ghosts, Feminist Monsters, and Other Lesbian Hauntings, Cait McKinney and Allyson Mitchell eds, University of British Columbia Press and The Art Gallery of York University Press, 2019
“Returning to Riddles”, in Women Artists, Feminism and the Moving Image, Lucy Reynolds ed., I B Tauris, 2019
“Learning and Playing: re-enactment in feminist art”, Feminism and Art History Now: Radical Critiques of Theory and Practice, Lara Perry and Victoria Horne eds., I B Tauris, 2017
“A Time of One’s Own”, Oxford Art Journal, 39 (3), December 2016
Other recent publications
Responding to Women and Creativity, Group Work and Chelsea Space, 2021
“Lost and Found: Feminism, archives and the university under lockdown”, (written with Althea Greenan), Goldsmiths Press blog, 2020, https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/features/lost-and-found/
“Consciousness-raising and beyond”, Militant Desire, Paul Clinton ed., exhibition catalogue, Gasworks, 2019
A longer list of publications can be found by clicking on my Pure profile or Academia.edu profile.
Podcasts and Recorded Lectures
“New Books in Art” podcast, discussing A Time of One’s Own: histories of feminism in contemporary art, April 2023, https://newbooksnetwork.com/a-time-of-ones-own
“Experiments in Art Writing”, podcast series edited by Anna Reid, part of British Art Talks, Paul Mellon Centre, April 2021, https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/about/news/new-british-art-talks-series-experiments-in-art-writing
“A letter sent, waiting to be received: queer correspondence, feminism and Black British art”, paper given at Creative Conversations: Black Women Artists Making & Doing Symposium, IBar, University of Central Lancashire, January 2020 https://ibaruclan.com/films-creative-conversations-black-women-artists-making-doing-symposium/
“Resisting Relations”, one-day symposium on lesbian identity and art, speakers include Yve Lomax, Dorothea Smartt, Naeem Davis, Del LaGrace Volcano, Mason Leaver-Yap and Nat Raha, Goldsmiths, June 2019 https://soundcloud.com/user-247437336/sets/resisting-relations-symposium-goldsmiths-london-6-june-2019
Paper entitled “Killjoy’s Kastle in London” and panel discussion as part of “Shattered: Contemporary Perspectives on Second Wave Feminism and its Art Forms”, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, December 2018 https://goldsmithscca.art/channel/shattered-contemporary-perspectives-on-second-wave-feminism-and-its-art-forms/
“Fandom as Methodology”, PhD seminar with speakers Kate Random Love, Owen Parry and Alison Jones, MARS, Goldsmiths, March 2018 http://m-a-r-s.online/sessions/fandom-as-methodology
Panel discussion “Stories That Matter: Feminist Methodologies in the Archive”, ICA, London, November 2016 https://soundcloud.com/icalondon/stories-that-matter-feminist-methodologies-in-the-archive-part-3?in=icalondon/sets/stories-that-matter-feminist-methodologies-in-the-archive
Selected Publications
