Sarah Demelo | University of Essex (original) (raw)

I am the Curator at the University of Essex where I oversee the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America and the University's Art Collection of British Modernist work, alongside the Special Collections held at the Albert Sloman Library.

My PhD, 'Autobiography and Self-Portraiture in the works of Christian Boltanski and Sophie Calle,' argues that their work that their works exist outside the traditional boundaries of self-portraiture through their use of fact and fiction. My thesis traces the emergence of literary theory's appropriation and redefinition of the term 'self-portrait,' how art history can reclaim the term and what uses it may have within art history. In reapplying the renewed term back into art historical discourse, my thesis posits new readings of the works of contemporary self-portraitists such as Sophie Calle, and Christian Boltanski.

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