Essays

‘Monétiser le génocide’ [on Gaza and Motaz Azaiza], Transbordeur photographie: histoire, société, no. 10, 2026, pp. 56-61. Published in French, below is the English text.

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‘An Activist Art: The Anti-Apartheid Prints of Norman Kaplan’, Print Quarterly, vol. xlii, no. 3, September 2025, pp. 286-296.

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‘The Immersive Clash of Painting and Video’, Vision (Istanbul), no. 4, special issue: Can You Believe What You See?, January 2025, pp. 44-65.

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‘Into the Woods: Sun Yao’s Animist Realm’, in Qin Zhequi, ed., Sun Yao, Place M Publishing, Tokyo 2024, pp. 140-6.

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‘Revisting “Art and Money Online”’, in Tereza Havlíková/ Julia Kochanek/ Anneliese Ostertag, eds., From Net, City, World to Cloud, Market, Sea Metaphors of the Internet, Zentrum für Netzkunst e.V., Berlin 2024, pp. 140–151.

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‘Memories of the Present: Photography and Artificial Intelligence’, New Left Review, no. 148, July-August 2024, pp. 117-132.

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‘Knowledge, Nation and Colour in Documentary Photography’, in James Fox/ Vid Simonti, eds., Art and Knowledge After 1900: Interactions Between Modern Art and Thought, Manchester University Press, Manchester 2023, pp. 200-21.

‘Entangled in the Forest of Brexit’, in Colin Perry, ed., Art and the Rural Imagination, More Than Ponies, n.p. 2022, pp. 12-23.

‘Populist Art and the Condition of Criticism’, in Elisabeth Heymer/ Hubert Locher/ Stephanie Marchal/ Melanie Sachs-Resch/ Beate Söntgen, eds., Judgement Practices in the Artistic Field (Praktiken der Kritik), Edition Metzel, Munich 2023, pp. 481-501.

‘Graffiti in the Power of Photography’, in Astrid Ihle/ René Zechlin, eds., Street Life: The Street in Art from Kirchner to Streuli, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2022, pp. 171-3, 180-3.

‘Iconoclasm Makes Images’, preface to Adeela Suleman/ Mariam Ali Baig, eds., Art Violence and the State in the Killing Fields of Karachi, 2022, pp. 11-13.

‘Contemporary Art is Popular—but it’s still about Money and Power’, opendemocracy, 24 July 2022: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/stallabrass-contemporary-art-market-audience/?fbclid=IwAR37kI8BO07CEsNtpOf0kxtrNTuzBexE_PmLo3BV6Sq7kQ80LRJI7nESt6E

‘The Look of War’, Art Monthly, no. 456, May 2022, pp. 6-9.

‘The Face of War’, Apollo, vol. cxcv, no. 708, May 2022, pp. 58-64.

‘L’art d’élite à l’ère du populisme’, substantially updated version of ‘Elite Art in an Age of Populism’, in Chantal Boulanger/ Nicolas Mavrikakis/ Laurent Vernet, eds., L’illusion post-moderne?: Réflexions sur l’évanescence d’un concept en arts visuels, Varia/ Groupe Nota bene, Montréal 2021, pp. 83-99. English version: ‘Elite Art in an Age of Populism‘

Mignon Nixon, ‘“Killing for Show”: A Conversation with Julian Stallabrass’, October, no. 177 Summer 2021, pp. 3–23.

‘Corona Equivalents’, Photography and Culture, March 2021. An essay on photographing clouds during the pandemic.

‘Memory and Icons: Photography in the War on Terror’, New Left Review, no. 105, May/June 2017, pp. 29-50. Free version of the essay is here.

‘Le Flou d’un Temps où les Choses Étaient Nettes’, Reporters Without Borders, no. 50. 2015, special issue: Robert Capa: 100 Photos for Press Freedom, p. 100.

‘Nosepaint Remembered’, in Margaret Garlake, ed., Beaconsfield: Chronic Epoch, Black Dog Publishing, London 2015, pp. 8-11.

‘Can Art History Digest Net Art?’, in Dieter Daniels / Gunther Reisinger, eds., Netpioneers 1.0 – Contextualising Early Net-based Art, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2009, pp. 165-79. Turkish translation: Mukadder Cąkir, ed., Yeni Medyaya Eleştirel Yaklaşimlar, Dogû Kitabevi, Istanbul 2014, pp. 269-82. Ars Electronica essay

Essays on Simon Norfolk and Nadav Kander, in Alona Pardo/ Elias Redstone, eds., Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age, Barbican Art Gallery/ Prestel, London/ Munich 2014, pp. 209, 245.

‘Elite Art in an Age of Populism’, in Alexander Dumbadze/ Suzanne Hudson, eds., Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford 2013, pp. 39-49. Korean translation: Visual (Korea National University of Arts, Seoul), vol. 9, 2012, pp. 39-69. Portuguese translation: ‘Arte de elite em uma era de populismo’, Revista-Valise (Porto Alegre), vol. 4, no. 7, July 2014. pp. 151-68: http://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/RevistaValise/article/view/49004

‘On Selfies’, London Review of Books, vol. 36, no. 11, 5 June 2014, p. 20.

‘Brand Strategy of Art Museum’, in Wang Chunchen, ed., University and Art Museum, Tongji University Press, Shanghai 2011, published in Chinese. Also published in Cornelia Klinger, ed., Blindheit und Hellsichtigkeit: Künstlerkritik an Politik und Gesellschaft der Gegenwart, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2013, pp. 303-16; and in a revised and updated version as ‘The Branding of the Museum’, Art History, vol. 37, no. 1, February 2014, pp. 148-65. Museum as Brand essay.

‘Young British Art on the Global Stage’, Contemporary Art Journal (Seoul), vol. 15, 2013, pp. 55-64.

‘Hipstamatic Blues’, foreword to Rita Leistner, Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan, Intellect Books, Bristol/ Chicago 2013, pp. 16-17.

‘Manifest Opulence’ [Frieze Art Fair], London Review of Books, blog, 18 October 2013: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/10/18/julian-stallabrass/manifest-opulence/

‘Are You a Photographer?’, Photoworks website, published 1 July 2013: http://photoworks.org.uk/are-you-a-photographer/

‘Atrocity in Public Relations’, Huffington Post, published 19 June 2013: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/julian-stallabrass/atrocity-in-public-relati_b_3463860.html

‘A nova cartilha da guerra’ [Broomberg and Chanarin’s War Primer 2], Zum: Revista de Fotografia (São Paulo), no. 5, October 2013, pp. 166-81. Published in Portuguese and English.

‘Elite Art in an Age of Populism’, The Spanner, issue 6, 2012, p. 2.

‘Rather a Hawk? The Photography of Larry Burrows’, in Kate Bush, ed., Everything Was Moving: Photography from the 60s and 70s, Barbican Art Gallery, London 2012, pp. 234-5.

‘Faces and Facades: Rich and Poor Images in the Work of Roland Fischer’, in Saarland Museum, Roland Fischer: New Photography, 1984-2012, Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2012, pp. 28-31. Also published as ‘Visages et façades: images riches et images pauvres dans l’oeuvre de Roland Fishcher’, in Saarland Museum, Roland Fischer: New Photography, 1984-2012, Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2012, supplement, pp. 15-17. Text also in German.

‘On My Mind’ [Van Bao, The Aftermath of a B-52 Strike on the Suburbs of Hai Phong, 1972], Foam: International Photography Magazine, no. 31, Summer 2012, p. 10.

‘The Birth and Death of Young British Art’, Bazaar Art (Beijing), July 2012, pp. 86-93. yba-Bazaars

‘Un art radical?/ Radical Art?’, Espace Sculpture (Montreal), no. 99, Spring 2012.

‘Radical Camouflage at Documenta-13’, New Left Review, new series, no. 77, September/ October 2012, pp. 123-33.

Contribution to ‘Keywords on Art’, Public Art (Seoul), vol. 73, October 2012, p. 76.

‘A Sad Reflection on the Art World’, The Art Newspaper, no. 241, December 2012, p. 41.

Contribution to ‘Art and Entertainment Forum’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 11, 2011, pp. 67-78.

‘Art Pollutes Oil’, in Jo Clarke et al, eds., Not If But When: Culture Beyond Oil, Art Not Oil/ Liberate Tate/ Platform, London 2011, p. 70. http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/culture-beyond-oil-full-publication

Contribution to ‘Art and Entertainment Forum’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 11, 2011, pp. 67-78.

‘Shadow and Scale in the KYOPO Project’, in CYJO, KYOPO, Umbrage Editions, New York 2011.

‘Short Cuts’ [The End of Kodachrome], London Review of Books, vol. 33, no. 3, 3 February 2011, p. 18. Illustrated version published in Journal #3, vol. 1, issue 2, 2011, pp. 70-4.

‘Digital Partisans’, New Left Review, new series, no. 74, March/ April 2011, pp. 125-39.

‘The Hollow Triumph of Contemporary Art’, The Art Newspaper Magazine, June 2011, pp. 7-8

‘Death of a Salesman’ [Lucian Freud], Bazaar Art (Beijing), September 2011, p. 75. Chinese version: LFreud

Contribution to ‘Anxiety of Images’, Aperture, no. 204, Fall 2011, p. 69.

‘Mandatory Music’, in Song-Ming Ang/ Kim Cascone, eds., The Book of Guilty Pleasures, 3^rd Singapore Biennial, Singapore 2011.

‘Andy Freeberg: Art Fairs’, Photoworks, Autumn/ Winter 2010-11, pp. 4-5.

‘The Future of Art’, Maybourne, no. 7, Winter 2010-2011, pp. 23-6.

‘Bureaucracy and Crime: Photography at Guantanamo’, in Edmund Clark, Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out, Dewi Lewis Publishing, Stockport 2010, n.p.

‘Museum Photography and Museum Prose’, New Left Review, no. 65, September-October 2010, pp. 93-125. An essay largely about the work of Jeff Wall.

‘Selling the Museum’, IWM Post (Newsletter of the Institut für Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Vienna), no. 105, September-December 2010, pp. 21-2.

‘Stem Cell Technology’ [Hockney’s iPad pictures], Times Higher Education, no. 1976, 2-8 December 2010, pp. 45-6.

‘The Fracturing of Globalisation’, in Jelle Bouwhis/ Ingrid Commandeur/ Gijs Frieling/ Domenik Ruyters/ Margit Schavemaker/ Christel Vesters, eds., Now is the Time: Art and Theory in the 21^st Century, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam 2009, pp. 63-74. An updated version was published in Modern Art (Taipei), no. 152, October 2010, pp. 4-15.

‘Obama on Flickr’, Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 8, no. 2, August 2009, pp. 196-201.

‘Rearranging Corpses, Curatorially’, Photoworks, October-April 2008-9, pp. 4-9.

‘Good-bye to All That’, Spike Art Quarterly (Vienna/ Berlin), no. 15, 2008, pp. 94-98.

Preface to Philip Jones Griffiths, Recollections, Trolley, London 2008, n.p.

‘The Politics of the Political Catalogue Essay’, in Villa Lituania: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Lithuanian Pavilion, 52nd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Sternberg Press, Berlin 2008, pp. 68-78. Portuguese translation: ‘A política do ensaio político de catálogo’, Ars (São Paulo), no. 16, 2010, pp. 74-82.

‘Conservatism and Class Difference in Twentieth-Century British Art’, in Chris Stephens, ed., The History of British Art, 1870-Now, Tate Britain/ Yale Center for British Art/ Tate Publishing, London 2008, pp. 120-51.

‘The Ideal of Art Criticism’, assessment in James Elkins, ed., The State of Art Criticism, Routledge, New York 2008, pp. 334-5.

Reply to questionnaire about reactions to the war, October, 123, Winter 2008, pp. 161-3.

‘Broomberg and Chanarin, Fig.’ in Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Fig., Photoworks/ Steidl, Brighton/ Göttingen 2007, n.p.

‘What’s in a Face? Blankness and Significance in Contemporary Art Photography’, October, no. 122, Fall 2007, pp. 71-90.

‘Inherent Vice’, Tate Papers, no. 8, Autumn 2007: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/07autumn/stallabrass.htm

‘Fetishism, Youth and Violence in the Work of Tom Sachs’, in Astrup Fearnley Musset for Moderne Kunst, Tom Sachs: Survey. America-Modernism-Fashion, Oslo 2006 pp. 11-23.

‘Spectacle and Terror’, New Left Review, new series, no. 37, January-February 2006, pp. 87-106. An extended review of Retort’s book, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War

‘Not in Our Name’ [original title: ‘Iraq seen through the lens of Vietnam’], Art Monthly, no. 293, February 2006, pp. 1-4.

‘Truth or Dare’ [the political turn in contemporary British art], FT Magazine, December 2/3 2006, pp. 34-5.

‘Reasons to Hate Thomson & Craighead’, in Steven Bode / Nina Ernst, eds., Thomson and Craighead, Film and Video Umbrella, London 2005.

‘Economics Alone do not Explain Painting’s Revival’, The Art Newspaper, no. 159, June 2005, p. 35. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2005/06/01/the-value-of-art-economics-alone-do-not-explain-paintings-revival

‘A View from the Fish Tank’, in Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Black Shoals Stock Market Planetarium: An Art Project by Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway, Copenhagen 2004, n.p.

‘Types and Prospects of Radical Art’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 4, no. 2, vol. 5, no. 1, 2003-4, pp. 189-201.

‘The Aesthetics of Net.Art’, Qui Parle, vol. 14, no. 1, Fall/ Winter 2003, 2004, pp. 49-72.

‘Simon Norfolk’, in The Photographers’ Gallery, Citibank Photography Prize 2003, London 2003, pp. 45-6.

‘Free Trade/ Free Art’, in Neil Cummings/ Marysia Lewandowska, Free Trade, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester 2003, pp. 34-40. Reprinted in Marko Stamenković, ed., Art-E-Conomy: Theoretical Reader, Beograd 2007, pp. 169-74; and in modified form in Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Florence, Arte Prezzo Valore: Arte Contemporanea e Mercato, Silvana Editoriale, Milan 2008, pp. 57-65.

‘Spraycans at Dawn’ [graffiti], Evening Standard, 29 July 2003.

‘Computer Fictions’, Prospect, no. 84, March 2003, pp. 28-33; republished in the Financial Review (Australia) as ‘At Play in the Virtual World’, 29 May 2003.

‘Elements of Drawing Blind’, Chinese-art.com, vol. 5, issue 1, 2002: http://www.chinese-art.com/Contemporary/volume5issue1/6.htm

‘The Fate of “Young British Art”’, in Jürgen Bock, ed., From Work to Text: Dialogues on Practise and Criticism in Contemporary Art, Fundaçaõ Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon 2002, pp. 149-52.

Contribution to 100 Reviews Backwards, ed. Matthew Arnatt/ Matthew Collings/ Cornelia Grassi, Alberta Press, London 2002, pp. 18-23.

‘Rehearsal of Memory’, in Claire Doherty, ed., Factor 1995, FACT, Liverpool 2002, n.p.

‘Shop Until You Stop’, in Schirn Kunstalle Frankfurt/ Tate Liverpool, Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture, ed. Christoph Grunenberg/ Max Hollein, Hatje Cantz Publishers, Ostfildern-Ruit 2002, pp. 222-30.

Introduction to ‘Globalisation’ section in Rasheed Araeen/ Sean Cubitt/ Ziauddin Sardar, The Third Text Reader on Art, Culture and Theory, Continuum, London 2002, pp. 277-9.

‘Digital Commons’, New Left Review, no. 15, May/June 2002, pp. 141-6.

Transcript of lecture on Internet art in Sarah Cook, Beryl Graham and Sarah Martin, eds., Curating New Media: Third Baltic International Seminar, Baltic, Gateshead 2002, pp. 17-43.

‘Other Britannias’, catalogue essay in Centre Cultural Tecla Sala, La Otra Britània, Barcelona 2001, pp. 8-9.

‘The Image and Substance of Che’, DPICT, no. 7, April/ May 2001, pp. 38-41.

‘Art I Like’, Modern Painters, Summer 2000, pp. 36-8.

‘Conventionally Unconventional’, Art Monthly, no. 240, October 2000, p. 48.

‘The Borders of Art’, in Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art Degree Show, catalogue, Oxford 2000.

‘The Ideal City and the Virtual Hive: Modernism and Emergent Order in Computer Culture’, in John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Techocities: The Culture and Political Economy of the Digital Revolution, Sage Publishers, London 1999, 108-20.

‘Some Voices’, Metronome, no. 2, 1997, pp. 54-7.

‘Vampires and Peacocks’ Tails’, in Beaconsfield/ AMPCOM, Between the Devil and the Deep (Blue) Sea, London/ Helsinki 1997, n.p. Exhibition catalogue with the work of Beaconsfield, Stuart Brisley, Robert Ellis, Tracey Emin, Bruce Gilchrist, Hayley Newman and Mark Wallinger.

‘Sebastião Salgado and Fine Art Photojournalism’, New Left Review, no. 223, May-June 1997, pp. 131-160. Extract reprinted in Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Sebastião Salgado: The Global Photographer, New York 2011, pp. 5-7.

‘Phoney War’, Art Monthly, no. 206, May 1997, pp. 15-16. John Roberts replied to this article in a letter in no. 207, June 1997, pp. 14-16, and I replied to that in no. 208, July 1997, p. 19-20.

‘Media Art in a Modernist Climate’ [on Finnish contemporary art], Art Monthly, no. 202, December 1996-January 1997, p. 50.

‘Where Artists Fear to Tread’, Red Pepper, no. 27, August 1996, pp. 28-9.

‘Empowering Technology: The Exploration of Cyberspace’, New Left Review, no. 211, May-June 1995, pp. 3-32. (republished in Korean in Creation and Criticism, no. 91, 1996, pp. 354-404; also in Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan, eds., Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader, second edition, London 1997.)

‘Fotofeis’, Art Monthly, no. 191, November 1995, pp. 23-25.

‘On the Margins’ (an edited version of a catalogue essay for the exhibition Candyman II), Art Monthly, no. 182, December 1994-January 1995, pp. 3-6.

‘Success and Failure of Peter Fuller’, New Left Review, no. 207, September-October 1994, pp. 87-102.

‘The Epic of the Everyday’ [essay on photography as art based around exhibitions at the Barbican and the Hayward], Art Monthly, no. 179, September 1994, pp. 8-11.

‘Alain Kirili’, Art Monthly, no. 174, March 1994, pp. 27-8.

‘Rigid Digits’ [William Latham and computer art], Art Monthly, no. 173, February 1994, pp. 14-16.

Ian Turpin, Max Ernst, Phaidon Press, London 1993, notes to plates.

‘Just Gaming: Allegory and Economy in Computer Games’, New Left Review, no. 198, March-April 1993, pp. 83-106.

‘Renegotiations: Class, Modernity and Photography’, Art Monthly, no. 166, May 1993, pp. 21-2. Letters criticising this article were published in July-August issue along with my reply (no. 168, pp. 36-8).

‘The Meeting of Life and Art: Ben Nicholson’, Apollo, vol. cxxxix, no. 382, December 1993, p. 406.

‘Gerhard Richter: Pintura y medios de comunicación’ [Gerhard Richter: Painting and Mass Media], Kalías (Valencia), no. 8, Semestre II, 1992, pp. 102-108. Text in English available upon request.

‘Kazimir Malevich. The Climax of Disclosure by Rainer Crone and David Moos’, Art History, vol. 15, no. 3, September 1992, p. 394.

‘The Mother and Child Theme in the Work of Henry Moore’, catalogue essay for the touring exhibition Henry Moore. Mutter und Kind/ Mother and Child (shown at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne; Schloss Cappenberg, Kreis Unna; Kunstkreis, Norden; the Ernst Barlach Museum, Ratzeburg and Huddersfield Art Gallery) Henry Moore Foundation, Much Hadham 1992, pp. 13-39.

Publications Received: Carson-Pirie-Scott. Louis Sullivan and the Chicago Department Store, by Joseph Siry, The Burlington Magazine, vol. cxxxiii, no. 1058, May 1991, pp. 330-1.

‘Autographs and Images: Snapshots of Prague and Berlin’, New Left Review, no. 190, November-December 1991, pp. 83-9.

‘Iluna gordelekuan/ Oscuridad en el refugio’, catalogue essay published in Spanish and Basque for the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Henry Moore, 1990, pp. 19-43, 161-78. Text in English: ‘Darkness in the Shelter’.

‘The Idea of the Primitive: British Art and Anthropology 1918-1930’, New Left Review, no. 183, September-October 1990, pp. 95-115.

‘Cambridge Darkroom, Arnolfini Gallery, Bauhaus Photography’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. cxxxii, no. 1051, October 1990, pp. 730-1.

‘On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, De Chirico and the New Classicism’ [Tate Gallery], Art Monthly, no. 138, July-August 1990, p. 23.

‘Publications Received’ [Architecture and Design], The Burlington Magazine, vol. cxxxii, no. 1047, June 1990, pp. 424-5.

Henry Moore: Mother and Child. Etchings and Small Sculpture, London, The British Council, 1990: essay in the booklet and flysheet accompanying the British Council touring exhibition, beginning at the Akhenaton 2 Gallery, Cairo, October-November 1990.

‘Bradford: The Kodak Museum’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. cxxxii, no. 1038, September 1989, pp. 666-7.