ArtEZ Press book release The Entanglement of Theory and Practices in the Arts

What do we mean by theory in the arts, and what role does it play?
The Entanglement of Theory and Practices in the Arts, edited by Peter Sonderen, explores theory in the arts, and investigates its role, its possibilities, its meaning and its importance.

Theory in the arts

The different contributions in the book show how the ArtEZ Theory in the Arts Research Group has shifted the attention from a theory about the arts to theory in the arts. That is to say that theory and practice are entangled; they can be discerned but they cannot be disconnected. Within the arts, theory and practice represent and produce their own theoretical fields and create knowledge that can only be produced by works of art.

Theory connects

Instead of being a descriptive or normative system, theory appears—in the arts—as an active, transformative, fluid and dialoguing element of art practices and of research in the arts in particular. Theory is the fluidum that perfuses and connects the territory of fine art and design, and all other art forms, including music, architecture, creative writing, moving images, dance and theatre.

About Peter Sonderen (ed.)

Peter Sonderen is Professor of Theory in the Arts at the ArtEZ University of the Arts and head of the Honours programme Theory and Research. His PhD in Art History and Aesthetics (University of Amsterdam 2000) on the origin of the modern concept of art foreshadows the focus of his current research, viz. theory, practice and research in the arts, performativity, and the role of the ‘new materialisms.' He edited the following books on these topics: Denken in Kunst (with Henk Borgdorff, Leiden University Press 2012), The Non-Urban Garden (AFdH 2014), Unpacking Performativity (with Gaby Allard, ArtEZ Press 2016) and Theory Arts Practices (with Marijn de Langen, ArtEZ Press 2017). With João Da Silva he published in 2019 an interactive platform,  Let’s Talks about (Artistic) Research.

The book contains contributions by Peter Sonderen, Frans Sturkenboom, Martijn Stevens, Laura van Grinsven, João da Silva, Falk Hübner, Johannes Kronenberg, Anne-Marie Meertens, Mirjam Sögner, and Julia Barrios de la Mora.

The book is available via: www.artezpress.artez.nl