CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/26/2024

Behold, Svetlana Alpers' 'Is Art History?'

We are delighted to announce Hunters Point Press' new release Is Art History?—perhaps the best-titled critical reader of this season (or any season)—by noted American art historian Svetlana Alpers. Collecting six decades of Alpers’ probing and sometimes excitingly confrontational writings, including foundational essays, recent work and previously unpublished lectures, this whopping 420-page clothbound text (complete with ribbon bookmark) is beautifully printed on creamy matte paper with a generous illustrations section at back that is itself printed on an appropriately bright, coated stock better suited to the act of looking. Spanning from 1426 to the 2000s, this is a book of remarkable confidence and vision. “Her voice as a writer is so distinct and direct, one would not want it diluted by anyone else,” Richard Meyer writes in his Introduction. “Nor would it behoove any editor to try to correct her. Recall: ‘If I am wrong, let the reader see I am wrong.’ … When I read an essay or review by Alpers, it is as though she is speaking aloud—and to me. To read one of her texts ‘is to feel that it is being done for you, or right before your eyes, as the phrase has it.’”