Travelling through the history of art from the 15th to the 20th century, this book is a survey of works of art by Old and Modern Masters including Van Eyck, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rubens, David, Manet, Cézanne, Matisse and Mondrian that have remained deliberately or unintentionally unfinished, and that are usually marginalized in traditional art history. They remain incomplete for various reasons: illness or death of the artist; political turmoil forcing him to flee; disagreements with the commissioner or dissatisfaction with the artistic result. However, from the 16th century onwards, artists started to use the non finito as a tool of expression. Unfinished pictures therefore gained a certain reputation in the romantic era, when they were thought to offer the spectator a glimpse of artistic genius. In the 20th century, these paintings were discovered by cubists, expressionists and abstract painters who were fascinated by their rough and incoherent appearance, often unaware of their history.

This groundbreaking book explores the evolving concept of unfinishedness as essential to understanding art movements from the Renaissance to the present day. Unfinished features more than 200 works, created in a variety of media, by artists ranging from Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cézanne to Picasso, Warhol, Twombly, Freud, Richter, and Nauman. What unites these works, across centuries and media, is that each one displays some aspect of being unfinished. Essays and case studies by major contemporary scholars address this key concept from the perspective of both the creator and the viewer, probing the impact that this long artistic trajectory—which can be traced back to the first century—has had on modern and contemporary art. The book investigates the degrees to which instances of incompleteness were accidental or intentional experimental or conceptual. Also included are illuminating interviews with contemporary artists, including Tuymans, Celmins, and Marden, and parallel considerations of the unfinished in literature and film. The result is a multidisciplinary approach and thought-provoking analysis that provide valuable insight into the making, meaning, and critical reception of the unfinished in art.

A certain idea of the avant-garde posits the possibility of a total rupture with the past. The Unfinished Art of Theater pulls back on this futuristic impulse by showing how theater became a key site for artists on the semiperiphery of capitalism to reconfigure the role of the aesthetic between 1917 and 1934. The book argues that this “unfinished art”—precisely because of its historic weakness as a representative institution in Mexico and Brazil, where the bourgeois stage had not (yet) coalesced—was at the forefront of struggles to redefine the relationship between art and social change. Drawing on extensive archival research, Sarah J. Townsend reveals the importance of projects and texts that belie the rhetoric of rupture and immediacy associated with the avant-garde: ethnographic operas with ties to the recording industry, populist puppet plays, children’s radio programs about the wonders of technology, a philosophical drama about the birth of a new race, and an antifascist spectacle written for (but never performed at) a theater shut down by the police. Ultimately, the book makes the case that the very category of avant-garde art is bound up in the experience of dependency, delay, and the uneven development of capitalism.

This original, field-changing collection explores the plasticity and unfinishedness of human subjects and lifeworlds, advancing the conceptual terrain of an anthropology of becoming. People's becomings trouble and exceed ways of knowing and acting, producing new possibilities for research, methodology, and writing. The contributors creatively bridge ethnography and critical theory in a range of worlds on the edge, from war and its aftermath, economic transformation, racial inequality, and gun violence to religiosity, therapeutic markets, animal rights activism, and abrupt environmental change. Defying totalizing analytical schemes, these visionary essays articulate a human science of the uncertain and unknown and restore a sense of movement and possibility to ethics and political practice. Unfinished invites readers to consider the array of affects, ideas, forces, and objects that shape contemporary modes of existence and future horizons, opening new channels for critical thought and creative expression. Contributors. Lucas Bessire, João Biehl, Naisargi N. Dave, Elizabeth A. Davis, Michael M. J. Fischer, Angela Garcia, Peter Locke, Adriana Petryna, Bridget Purcell, Laurence Ralph, Lilia M. Schwarcz

Social media has become an inescapable part of academic life. It has the power to transform scholarly communication and offers new opportunities to publish and publicise your work, to network in your discipline and beyond and to engage the public. However, to do so successfully requires a careful understanding of best practice, the risks, rewards and what it can mean to put your professional identity online. Inside you′ll find practical guidance and thoughtful insight on how to approach the opportunities and challenges that social media presents in ways that can be satisfying and sustainable as an academic. The guide has been updated throughout to reflect changes in social media and digital thinking since the last edition, including: The dark side of social media – from Trump to harassment Emerging forms of multimedia engagement – and how to use to your advantage Auditing your online identity – the why and how Taking time out – how to do a social media sabbatical. Visit Mark′s blog for more insights and discussion on social media academic practice.

In Victorian England, a young painter dies in strange and violent circumstances. In the present day, a student of art history at Cambridge University has recurrent dreams which link her with past events and with a painting that was never finished. What connects these two episodes apparently remote in time?

For fans of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Girl, Interrupted, and A.S. King, National Book Award-finalist Adele Griffin tells the fully illustrated story of a brilliant young artist, her mysterious death, and the fandom that won't let her go. From the moment she stepped foot in NYC, Addison Stone’s subversive street art made her someone to watch, and her violent drowning left her fans and critics craving to know more. I conducted interviews with those who knew her best—including close friends, family, teachers, mentors, art dealers, boyfriends, and critics—and retraced the tumultuous path of Addison's life. I hope I can shed new light on what really happened the night of July 28. —Adele Griffin