Inaugural Statement

asap/journal, is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that explores new developments in post-1960s visual, media, literary, and performance arts. The scholarly publication of ASAP: The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, asap/journal promotes intellectual exchange between artists and critics across the arts and humanities. Recognizing the pluridisciplinary nature of contemporary art and criticism across the globe, the journal publishes methodologically cutting-edge, conceptually adventurous, and historically nuanced research about the arts of the present.

ASAP/Journal is published trianually in January, May, and October by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Each issue will include an interview with a practicing artist and scholarly essays, in addition to other regular features. Book reviews, online galleries, and other multimedia features will be available on the ASAP/Journal digital platform.

ASAP/Journal defines “the contemporary” as the vital and emergent present. We publish work that articulates new arts movements, critically examines emerging aesthetic practices, discovers new critical methods and vocabularies, and investigates how the contemporary arts confront the historicity of artistic form. ASAP/Journal is committed to exploring the full cultural and geographic range, as well as the creative and conceptual rigor, of the contemporary arts.

We welcome essays about international art, artists, or arts movements of any kind, unrestricted by national, ethnic, religious, or gender borders and boundaries. In addition to traditional scholarly essays, we also invite artist conversations, creative modes of critical argumentation, and essays in alternative or multi-media formats. We invite contributions that address the aesthetics, ethics, politics, forms, and methods of the contemporary arts in any medium, including the cinematic, media, visual, plastic, sound, literary, and performance arts.

As the scholarly journal of ASAP, ASAP/Journal upholds the mission of the association, which is to facilitate and promote scholarly excellence in the study of the contemporary arts. It provides a forum for dialogue among and between scholars and practitioners of the contemporary, and it seeks to advance our collective knowledge of our own elusive contemporaneity.

On behalf of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, we enthusiastically welcome you to ASAP/Journal.