Edited by Jennifer Higgie

Part of the acclaimed Documents of Contemporary Art series of anthologies which collect writing on major themes and ideas in contemporary art.

This title traces the role humour plays in transforming the practice and experience of art, from the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, through Fluxus and Pop, to the diverse, often uncategorizable works of some of the most influential artist’s today. Artists' writings are accompanied and contextualized by the work of critics and thinkers including Freud, Bergson, Hélène Cixous, Slavoj Žižek, Jörg Heiser, Jo Anna Isaak and Ralph Rugoff, among others.

Artists surveyed include Leonora Carrington, Maurizio Cattelan, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Fischli & Weiss, Andrea Fraser, Guerilla Girls, Hannah Höch, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Barbara Kruger, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenberg, Raymond Pettibon, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Arnulf Rainer, Ad Reinhardt, Ed Ruscha, Carolee Schneemann, David Shrigley, Robert Smithson, Annika Ström, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol.

Writers include Hugo Ball, Henri Bergson, André Breton, Hélène Cixous, Sigmund Freud, Jörg Heiser, Dave Hickey, Jo Anna Isaak, Ralph Rugoff, Peter Schjeldahl, Sheena Wagstaff, Hamza Walker and Slavoj Žižek.

Jennifer Higgie is the co-editor of frieze magazine. She has published writings on such contemporary artists as Ricky Swallow, Magnus Von Plessen and David Noonan. 

Paperback, 240 pages, 210 x 145 mm

ISBN 978–085488–156–7

First published 2007

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