Abstract
<JATS1:p>There is a long history of interaction and collaboration between artist and archaeologist. However, recent provocative work in the field, studio, museum and gallery, has opened new possibilities for radical alliances and creations.Disrupting Archaeology and Artpresents the work and conversation of an archaeologist and a contemporary painter who have moved into experimental territories beyond the traditional boundaries of their disciplines. This book presents detailed descriptions of six important works made by the authors.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>Doug Bailey’s aim is to change the ways that archaeologists engage with the materials of the past. His montages, films, and performance destructions (such asReleasing the Archive) undermine traditionally unquestioned tenets of archaeological action and of the conservation and preservation of artefacts and ancient remains. InDisrupting Archaeology and Art, Bailey describes his reasoning and methods of making three of his more provocative works.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>Simon Callery sets out to find new forms and functions for landscape-based painting. His contact paintings, pit paintings and large-scale sculptural work (Trench 10) produced in direct response to archaeological excavations in England and Wales, provoke significant debate over issues of time, image, and materiality. InDisrupting Archaeology and Art, Callery presents detailed accounts of how and why the excavation site has shaped his thinking and ambitions for contemporary painting.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>This book is a conversation between two iconoclasts, placing a first-hand, makers’ views of the creative process, within a wider dialogue about how artists and archaeologists respond to their shared themes of originality, time, authorship and meaning.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>This book brings together output and dialogue of a contemporary painter (Simon Callery) and an archaeologist (Doug Bailey). In their work, each moves in unconventional directions: with his work on excavation sites and in exhibitions, Callery rethinks what contemporary painting is and what it can be; with his art/archaeology publications and exhibitions, Bailey questions the primacy of archaeology as the best way to engage the past and its artefacts. Though their efforts sit within two distinct disciplines, Bailey and Callery share significant concerns and intentions. This common ground is seen most obviously in their shared attention to archaeological action, both as a field practice and as a means of relating our present to the past. The book combines six chapters describing and discussing in detail three works made by each author, with six chapters presenting the authors’ dialogue about foundational concepts in both art and archaeology: authorship, originality, time, meaning, and disciplinary disruption. Through example and dialogue, Disrupting Archaeology and Art provokes thought, debate, and new ways for working at and beyond the interface of two significant practices of modern cultural action and understanding.</JATS1:p>