Katherine Guinness
is a theorist and historian of contemporary art. She is Assistant Professor of Critical Studies in the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, she was Assistant Professor and Director of Art History at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS), where she also served as the academic director of the downtown Gallery of Contemporary Art (or GOCA). She received her PhD from the University of Manchester and is the author of the first academic monograph on German artist Rosemarie Trockel, Schizogenesis, which was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2019, and is co-author of The Influencer Factory: A Marxist Theory of Corporate Personhood on YouTube, which was published by Stanford University Press in 2024. She has been a guest editor for Art Journal Open and is the co-founder of FEARS, the Female Emerging Artist Residency Series, at UCCS.
Katherine has taught in a wide range of departments and programs across the globe, including the University of Sydney (where she taught a class in “Digital Arts” in their Digital Cultures program), the University of New South Wales (where she taught Architectural History), North Carolina State University (where she taught in their Art History and Women’s and Gender Studies programs), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where she taught a number of First Year Seminars in Art History). She is interested in many topics within contemporary art, all of which she examines with a feminist lens, and is currently working on projects that include: the relation between anesthetics and the history of aesthetic theory; “zaniness” in contemporary Australian performance and video art; death, immortality and digital media in the work of a number of younger video artists; and a project on the political economy and visual culture of social media influencers.
The above image is a meme by @cyborg.asm on Instagram, referencing the article “Do You Really Want to Live Forever,” which was coauthored with Grant Bollmer. The original meme can be found here and the article can be found here.
CONTACT
PROJECTS, WRITINGS, THINGS
THE INFLUENCER FACTORY: A MARXIST THEORY OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD ON YOUTUBE
(COAUTHORED WITH GRANT BOLLMER)
“Influencers...achieve wealth, fame, and luxury by imagining themselves and acting not as individuals but as if their existence is equivalent to that of a vertically integrated corporation, a context in which rights and abilities are denied human citizens and transferred to corporate entities...”
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(COAUTHORED WITH GRANT BOLLMER)
“Influencers...achieve wealth, fame, and luxury by imagining themselves and acting not as individuals but as if their existence is equivalent to that of a vertically integrated corporation, a context in which rights and abilities are denied human citizens and transferred to corporate entities...”
Read more...
SCHIZOGENESIS: THE ART OF ROSEMARIE TROCKEL
“A deep analysis of an enigmatic artist whose oeuvre opens new spaces for understanding feminism, the body, and identity.”
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“A deep analysis of an enigmatic artist whose oeuvre opens new spaces for understanding feminism, the body, and identity.”
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CONTEMPRARY ABSURDITIES, EXISTENTIAL CRISES, AND VISUAL ART
(COEDITED WITH CHARLOTTE KENT)
“Coherent demands or claims are perhaps antithetical to the absurd. often using extreme stances, the absurd shows why dearly held beliefs won’t work as intended. While absurdism provides neither answers nor solutions nor hope, it is not nihilistic... Pessimism and nihilism require some gesture towards ‘giving up’, or even a sense of faith. These are antithetical to the absurd. Those who can’t give up, or can’t have faith, need something beyond nihilism or pessimism.”
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(COEDITED WITH CHARLOTTE KENT)
“Coherent demands or claims are perhaps antithetical to the absurd. often using extreme stances, the absurd shows why dearly held beliefs won’t work as intended. While absurdism provides neither answers nor solutions nor hope, it is not nihilistic... Pessimism and nihilism require some gesture towards ‘giving up’, or even a sense of faith. These are antithetical to the absurd. Those who can’t give up, or can’t have faith, need something beyond nihilism or pessimism.”
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OTHER WRITINGS
Academic journal articles, book chapters, catalog essays, arts writing, etc.
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Academic journal articles, book chapters, catalog essays, arts writing, etc.
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FEMINIST INTERVIEW PROJECT
A series of interviews, organized and edited by Katherine and Jocelyn Marshall on behalf of CAA’s Committee for Women in the Arts, published in Art Journal Open.
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A series of interviews, organized and edited by Katherine and Jocelyn Marshall on behalf of CAA’s Committee for Women in the Arts, published in Art Journal Open.
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Image credits (listed from top to bottom): covers of The Influencer Factory, Schizogenesis, and Contemporary Absurdities; still from Heath Franco, LIFE IS SEXY, 2016–17, two-channel HD video, color, sound, 15 minutes 12 seconds; Stacy Platt, installation view of Kimberly English’s touch-and-go, January 2021; a screen capture of Katherine giving a talk; an example of the activities of the Department of Homeland Obscurity feminist interventionist art collective; screengrabs from the Feminist Interview Project on Art Journal Open.