Staff Profiles

Areas of Expertise

Contemporary Art, Late Modern Art, Aesthetics, Feminist Theory, Art and Psychoanalysis, Theories of Space and Place, Embodiment, Participatory art.

Teaching Areas

Art and Psychoanalysis; After Modern Sculpture: Installation, Structures and Space; Art, Gender, Sexuality and the Body; Abstraction: From Kandinsky to Minimalism

Current Research Activity

Dr Best's current research project is entitled Visualizing Feeling: The Feminine Avant-garde in Late Modern Art

The study has three interconnected aims: to challenge the dominant characterisation of the art of the 1960s and 1970s as anti-aesthetic and affectless, to introduce feeling to the analysis of late modern and contemporary art, and to thereby properly acknowledge the specific contribution of leading women artists to this period.  The book focuses on four well-known and highly respected North and South American artists of the period: Eva Hesse, Lygia Clark, Ana Mendieta and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.  I show how their work transforms the avant-garde protocols of the period by introducing an affective dimension to late modern art.  This aspect of their work, while frequently noted, has never been analysed in detail.

Publications

Book Chapters

Best, S. (2004). Tickled Pink: Laughter as Institutional Critique, catalogue entry for Joan Ground and Sherre DeLys. On reason and emotion : Biennale of Sydney 2004 Catalogue. (98 - 99). Sydney, Biennale of Sydney.

Best , S . (2000). Landscape and Responsibility. Trauma and Memory: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. (67 - 80). Vienna, Passagen Verlag.

Best, S. (2001). You are on Aboriginal Land: Landscape after Land Rights. Postcolonial + Art Where Now?. ( - ). Sydney, Artspace.

Best , S. (2001). Elemental Constructions: Women Artists and Sculpture in the Expanded Field. What is Installation? An Anthology of Writiongs on Australian Art. (185 - 204). Sydney, University of Sydney.

Refereed Journal Articles

Best, S. (2007). The Serial Spaces of Ana Mendieta. Art History, (30.1). (57 - 82).

Best, S. (2007). Personal Experience and Impersonal Aesthetics: The Video Work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982). Reading Room: A Journal of Art and Culture, (1). (126 - 139).

Best, s. (2007). Rethinking Visual Pleasure: Aesthetics and Affect. Theory and Psychology, (17.4). (505 - 514).

Best, S. (2006). Lygia Clark (1920-1988) Bodily Sensation and Affect: Expression as Communion. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, (6.2/7.1). (82 - 104).

Best, S . (2006). Minimalism, Subjectivity and Aesthetics: Rethinking the Anti-Aesthetic Tradition in Late-Modern Art. Journal of Visual Arts Practice, (5.3). (127 - 142).

Best, S. (2005). Mild Intoxication and Other Aesthetic Feelings: Psychoanalysis and Art Revisited. Angelaki, (10:3). (157 - 170).

Best, S. (2002). What is Affect? Considering the affective dimension of contemporary installation. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, (2.2/3.1). (207 - 225).

Published Articles

Best, S. (2005). Second Nature: The Collaborative Works of Sherre DeLys and Joan Grounds. Art and Australia, (43:2). (268 - 271).

Best, S. (2008). Revolutionary Forms and Figures: Review of 16th Biennale of Sydney. Column, (2). (31 - 35).

Best, S. (2008). In between performance and participation. Column, (1). (132 - 133).

Best, S. (2004). Seriality and Insanity: The Aesthetics of Administration Revisited, Anne Ferran’s 1-38. Eyeline, (). (18 - 21).

Best, S. (2006). Relativism and its Discontents: Review of Radical Revisionism ed Rex Butler. Art Monthly Australia, (196). (11 - 12).

Best, S. (2004). Sound and Light Humour: Callum Morton’s More Talk About Buildings and Mood. Architecture Australia, (93:1, Jan/Feb). (36 - 37).

Grants

Australian Research Council, ARC Discovery Grant, Affect and Expression in Women's Art in Art Movements of the 1960s and 70s. (2003-2005),

Professional Associations

International Association of Art Critics (AICA)
Member

College Art Association (USA)
Member

Association of Art Historians (UK)
Member

Art Association of Australia and New Zealand
Member