New book in the Studies in Curating Art series

Anatomy of a Cowboy explores an archetype through postmortem and undressing. Each chapter picks through the cowboy, his bones, and attributes. We are building an image for and with artists while asking: “Why the cowboy? Why now? Why us?” Our postmortem also reveals the foundational innards of the cowboy’s sordid history. Violence is inherent to this character and the brutish things it represents. Through butchering the iconic effigy, along with its trappings, we collectively envision what would happen if the lone rider was stripped bare and captured by the arts. We’ve splayed him out nicely between these pages. We’re looking for something beneath all the bells and whistles, shrewdly stealing pieces from his being. Still suckers for the cinematic, we couldn’t help but scatter appropriations of some of the cowboy’s most enduring attributes. Hints of weather-beaten leather or loops of lasso parade through the texts and design. A dust cover serves to protect from a harsh reality and only just mutes flecks of pearl and steel. The material cowboy is reflected here.

Contributors: Slüshie Alexander; Jonatan Habib Engqvist; Lauren Johnson; Charlie ‘Scarz’ Keegan; Greil Marcus; Rikke Villadsen; Làura Viruly; Nathalie Viruly

Editors: Ester d’Avossa; Clara Donadoni; Hannah Ingvoldstad; Charlotte Keegan; Nathalie Viruly; Linnea Wästfelt
Editorial board: Valentina Sansone
Chair of programme and course leader: Robin McGinley
Art direction, graphic design & illustrations: Antonio Gargiulo
ISBN: 978-91-89107-43-4

Full text in Digital Scientific Archive

The book series “Studies in Curating Art” has been published annually since 2014. “Studies in Curating Art” focuses on curatorial research and on the connections between curatorial theory and practice, within the frame of the international Master’s programme in Curating Art at Stockholm University.

About “Studies in Curating Art”