Dr Alistair Rider

Senior Lecturer in Art History

Phone: +44 (0)1334 46 2372
Email: ajr1@st-andrews.ac.uk

Research areas

My research focuses on art created between 1950 to 1980. I have a special interest in minimalism in the United States, which is a tendency across the arts during this period for paring back and simplifying. Minimalism can be defined as an attempt to reduce a work’s ‘artistic’ element to a state that is perceived to be less than an expected norm. My first book was a study of the minimalist sculptor, Carl Andre, and addressed the complex, sociological underpinnings of this aesthetic impulse.

Since then, I have written on many aspects of art and culture from the 1960s and the 1970s, including concrete art, land art, computer art, and guerrilla art. In recent years my research has widened to address artists from a range of different countries, including Brazil, Germany, Poland, Italy and Canada.

My current preoccupation relates to art practices that appear to remain stable for relatively long durations. I am exploring artists who (1) commence a work with an understanding that they will persist with it until their death (2) remain stylistically consistent for long stretches of time (3) regard each work as part of a long-term series (4) decide to undertake an activity for an assigned amount of time, or (5) plan to create a work a day for an assigned amount of time, no matter what. In total, I am addressing the practices of around a dozen artists from a range of different countries, and the study spans a chronological range of around sixty-five years. This subject embraces an array of themes that are challenging to conceptualize, including duration, ways of living or forms of life, and the relationship between the individual and collective. Addressing seemingly routine and consistent approaches to art making also allows me to explore aspects of artistic practice more generally, and I see this research project as a contribution to ongoing discussions about the value of a conception of practice for posthumanist theories of the social.

Currently, I am completing an extended study on the US minimalist painter, James Howell – an artist who devoted over twenty-five years of his life to depicting the grey spectrum. This will be published as a monograph in either 2020 or 2021.

If you are interested in pursuing postgraduate research at St Andrews on any topic that intersects with my research focus, please do send me an email.

PhD supervision

Anne-Sophie Daffertshofer

Selected publications

The longevity of Roman Opalka
Rider, A., 1 Sept 2016, In: Art History. 39, 4, p. 820-839 19 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
'We fragile humans': Rubinoff, witnessing and the sculptural encounter
Rider, A., Sept 2016, The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoff. Fox, J. (ed.). Douglas & McIntyre, p. 75-92
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Carl Andre in his time
Rider, A., 15 Sept 2015, Carl Andre in his Time. New York: Mnuchin Gallery, p. 7-14 8 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Open access

The concreteness of concrete art
Rider, A., 2015, In: Parallax. 21, 3, p. 340-352
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
On Kawara: New York
Rider, A., Jun 2015, Burlington Magazine, CLVII, p. 439-440 2 p.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
Open access

The routine art
Rider, A., 19 Apr 2016, Specialism. Blamey, D. (ed.). London: Open Editions, p. 100-110 10 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
Open access

The skin is a screen
Rider, A., Mar 2016, Diana Al-Hadid: Phantom Limb. Alison, M. (ed.). Abu Dhabi: NYUAD Gallery
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Carl Andre's Poetry and the Mapping of Media
Rider, A., 2012, In: Word & Image. 28, 4, p. 397-408 11 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Manfred Mohr: Scripted Variations
Rider, A., 16 Nov 2012, Manfred Mohr: one and zero. London: Carroll / Fletcher, p. 50-57 7 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Carl Andre: Things in their Elements
Rider, A., 15 May 2011, London: Phaidon Press. 272 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book

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