August Jordan Davis

University of Texas at Arlington, Art + Art History, Faculty Member

University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art, Faculty Member

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Department Chair, tenured Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History, Director of The Gallery at UTA, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Arlington (September 2019 to present as Chair and faculty; Gallery Director from August 2022 to present):

Since 1st September 2019, I have served full-time as the Department Chair of the Department of Art & Art History, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Arlington, where I am a faculty member as tenured Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History. As Department Chair I lead our team of 80 staff and faculty (part time and full time, tenured, tenure track and non-tenure track instructors and researchers), as we work together to educate our more than 800 undergraduate and over 20 graduate students across our four degree programs at the BA, BFA, and MFA levels. We offer 12 areas of study / concentrations at the undergrad level: Art Education, Art History, Clay, Drawing, Glass, Interactive Media, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Cinematic Arts, and Design. Our MFA Program provides four pathways in Intermedia, Glass, Cinematic Arts, and Design.

Our award-winning colleagues are nationally and internationally recognized for their innovative and enriching creative activity and scholarship. It has been a privilege to serve at UTA throughout this period (in spite of the myriad challenges the COVID-19 global pandemic wrought only a few months after my arrival). As of August 2022, I also hold the additional appointment of the new Director of The Gallery at UTA and look forward to the exciting collaborations and exhibitions program we are bringing to our audiences over the coming semesters and years.

You can contact me at UTA by email at: august.davis@uta.edu

Previously UK Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader - MA Contemporary Curation, Director of The Winchester Gallery at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton (September 2011 - August 2019)
Supervisors: MA and PhD Supervisor was Prof. Jonathan Harris
Address: Department of Art and Art History
University of Texas at Arlington
Fine Arts Building
502 S. Cooper #335
Arlington, Texas 76019

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Books by August Jordan Davis

Bashir Makhoul

"Bashir Makhoul is a retrospective monograph on the art of this influential, British-based Palest... more "Bashir Makhoul is a retrospective monograph on the art of this influential, British-based Palestinian artist. For more than twenty years, Makhoul has developed work in a range of media which explored both the aesthetics of modernism and post-modernism as well as offering nuanced political critiques of what it means to be – and to become – Palestinian. From his sumptuous early paintings, through his photographic and video practice, up to his most recent development of lenticular micro-lens printing technique, Makhoul has explored the intertextuality of form and content and art and politics. This publication is the first to provide an overview of Makhoul’s oeuvre and makes an important contribution to Palestinian visual art.

Exploring the notion of the monograph itself, the introduction by noted art historians Jonathan Harris and August Jordan Davis examines the cultural theoretical and socio-political significance of Makhoul’s two decades of practice. Included in this volume are seven essays, and a substantial interview with Makhoul, which provide readings of Makhoul’s work from the early 1990s up to the present day. These include the first publications of two substantial essays (by Harris and Ryan Bishop) on Makhoul’s most recent work, his ambitious 2012 installation Enter Ghost, Exit Ghost."

Chapters by August Jordan Davis

"Remote Control: From Theatre of Drones Back to the Living Room War, Martha Rosler's 'Bringing the War Home'"

Article for the catalogue edited by Juan Vincente Aliaga for the exhibition “Woeful Weapons, Jose... more

"Re:Turn", co-authored introductory chapter by August Jordan Davis and Jonathan Harris

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"Martha Rosler's Fighting Legions: Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975/2003) - Performance and the (Video) Document" in Jonathan Harris (ed.), Dead History, Live Art? Spectacle, Subjectivity and Subversion in Visual Culture Since the 1960s (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and Tate Publishing [Critical Forum Series], 2007)

This chapter addresses the 1975 Video Performance by Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, in ... more

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Journal Articles by August Jordan Davis

“Reading the Strange Case of Woman-as-Appliance: On Transfigurations, Cyborgs, Domestic Labour and the Megamachine”

Third Text, 2015

This was my solo authored article in the special issue of Third Text I co-edited with Basia Sliwi... more

“Trans-figurations: Transnational Perspectives on Domestic Space”

by August Jordan Davis and Basia Sliwinska

Third Text, 2015

This co-authored introduction article opened the special issue of Third Text co-edited by Basia S... more This co-authored introduction article opened the special issue of Third Text co-edited by Basia Sliwinska and myself in 2015. The special issue was also entitled Trans-figurations: Transnational Perspectives on Domestic Space; Numbers 135-136, July-September 2015 (online version, and print version was available from June 2016). Pages 247 – 255 (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2015.1135648).

Star Wars: Return of the Sixties, Or, Martha Rosler versus the Empire Striking Back

The most violent of the forces of globalization, imperialist colonization – whether as military, ... more The most violent of the forces of globalization, imperialist colonization – whether as military, economic or cultural invasion – has provided the subject for American artist Martha Rosler's critiques and projects over the course of nearly fifty years of artistic practice. This article provides an original account of the significance of Rosler's return, during the American ‘war on terror’ in the 2000s, to her previous anti-war photomontage series, originally produced in the 1960s and 1970s during the American war in Vietnam, entitled Bringing the War Home. Through a critical examination of the concept of the reboot as operative within both the Bush administration's policies and the meta-critique of such policies which Rosler's activist art strategies deploy, this article situates these photomontages within the artist's overall practice, particularly her work appropriating popular cultural forms, formats or artefacts, as well as her work critiquing forms of American military imperialism, especially in Chile.

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Works in progress by August Jordan Davis

Woman as Media: Channelling and Challenging in Feminist Visual Culture

Solo authored chapter in preparation for co-edited/co-authored project with Basia Sliwinska. Due ... more

Mediums: Woman as Media, channelling women, art and feminist critique

Solo authored book project, with manuscript completion proposed for end of December 2021.

Project with Basia Sliwinska (co-edited and co-authored research monograph on trans-feminisms)

by August Jordan Davis and Basia Sliwinska

At proposal stage following publisher's request; manuscript to be delivered end of December 2020.

“Reading Vogue and Reading Capital: Cultures of Reification and Critique in the work of Martha Rosler”

Article in progress for 2019

The House that Martha Built, or how Rosler Metaleptically Brought the War Back Home

This is an article that is in process.

"Deteriorate in your own time": Reading Vogue from Martha Rosler to Beyoncé

This is an article that is in process for publication in 2019.

Writing on the work of artist Fred Lonidier

This is part of an on-going project, not yet published.

Organising Conferences by August Jordan Davis

Transfigurations: Feminisms, Art, and Global Futures (Global Futures Forum 2014)

Co-organised and co-hosted one-day symposium from Winchester School of Art, University of Southam... more Co-organised and co-hosted one-day symposium from Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton & the Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media (as our Global Futures 2014) and Loughborough University & Sexual Politics Research Group (SPRiG), I worked with Dr Basia Sliwinska and Professor Marsha Meskimmon to present this event held at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester on 22 September 2014. We were privileged to have a number of great speakers throughout the day and very happy to have had a keynote address on the sculptural and cinematic work of Agnés Varda presented by Professor Gill Perry of the OU.

Otherwise Occupied One-day Symposium part of the official collateral event at Venice Biennale 2013

Organised a one-day symposium on the work of Aissa Deebi and Bashir Makhoul as part of the Otherw... more

Global Futures Forum 2012: Art, Criticism, & the Forces of Globalisation

I organised and co-hosted this conference with Professor Jonathan Harris at Winchester School of ... more I organised and co-hosted this conference with Professor Jonathan Harris at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton as part of our new research centre Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media. Prof. Harris was invited by AICA and The Archives of Art Criticism in Rennes, France to host this event as both our inaugural Global Futures Forum, but also as that year's AICA European Atelier event. Working with AICA and Tate Liverpool as our partner organisations for the event, we had more than 40 delegates join us from all over the world for a week of conference sessions, debates, discussions and events. Spending the first 3 days on the Winchester Campus, our last 3 days were spent in Liverpool attending the final sessions at Tate Liverpool and on the Saturday visiting the opening of the 2012 Liverpool Biennial, of which our final sessions were part of the official opening programme of Biennial events. We were privileged to have a number of session convenors working with us from various organisations and these included: Prof. Stephen Foster, Director of the John Hansard Gallery; Prof. Anna Maria Guasch from The University of Barcelona and Director of The Global Art Archives; Menene Gras, Director of Casa Asia in Spain; and Dr Paula Barreiro López also of The University of Barcelona. A selection of work from this conference was published in a Special Issue of the journal Third Text in July 2013, guest edited by Jonathan Harris.

Convening Conference Sessions by August Jordan Davis

Chairing Q&A for Keynote and Roundtable at Transfigurations: Feminisms, Art, & Global Futures (Global Futures Forum 2014)

I chaired the Q&A for our Keynote Address from Prof. Gill Perry and chaired the closing Roundtabl... more I chaired the Q&A for our Keynote Address from Prof. Gill Perry and chaired the closing Roundtable Plenary for our one-day symposium Transfigurations: Feminisms, Art, & Global Futures, co-hosted and co-organised by Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton & Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media, and Loughborough University & Sexual Politics Research Group (SPRiG), held on 22 September 2014 at The New Walk Museum and Gallery in Leicester.

Co-convenor of session & co-chair of roundtable discussion: "There's no place like home? Women-in-passage: ‘Home’ and Migrations in Women’s Art since 1945” at AAH annual conference 2014 (RCA, London, 10-12 April 2014)

Convening session on Women, Art, Power & Representation at the 2013 Annual Global Futures Forum, London

The 2013 Annual Global Futures Forum (part of Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton... more The 2013 Annual Global Futures Forum (part of Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton & Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media) was a two-day symposium held in London at The Mosaic Rooms and was in partnership with Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org) the online journal for Contemporary Visual Culture in North Africa and The Middle East. This year's focus was '10 years on: Art & Everyday Life in Iraq and Iran'. I convened a session on Women, Art, Power & Representation and it featured speakers including Kathy Battista, Rijin Sahakian, and a performance lecture from artist Rima Chahrour, together with a fascinating Q&A panel.

August Jordan Davis

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Books by August Jordan Davis

Chapters by August Jordan Davis

Journal Articles by August Jordan Davis

Works in progress by August Jordan Davis

Organising Conferences by August Jordan Davis

Convening Conference Sessions by August Jordan Davis

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