Originally from Canada, Joel Robinson earned his BA Honors in Art History (1995) from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where he wrote a dissertation on the possibility of an aesthetic of the sublime after Barnett Newman, in respect to post-modernist theory and the photo-conceptual practices of Christian Boltanski and Gerhard Richter. His MA studies (1995-97) at the University of Western Ontario in London witnessed a gradual shift into the history of modern and contemporary architecture, with a thesis that looked at the Jewish Extension to the Berlin Museum vis-à-vis questions of representation, history and memory in the context of Germany after the destruction of the wall.
After a five-year break from studies, in which he practiced freelance journalism and worked as an English language teacher, he resumed his academic career at the University of Essex (Colchester), where his doctoral project involved a study of how modernist architecture – especially the funerary architecture of cemeteries, tombs, memorials and other commemorative spaces – was impacted by changing attitudes toward death, nature, and monumentality in the twentieth century.
His current research is following on from his doctoral work, but is increasingly marked by a concern for the landscape and the garden. One strand of his research is the aesthetics of ruin and decay. He is currently investigating the feasibility of a study that would look at the transposition of elegy into the landscape, from William Shenstone’s the Leasowes to the elegiac landscapes filmed by Alexandr Sokurov, via Wordsworth and Ruskin in the nineteenth century and artists like Robert Smithson, Derek Jarman, W.G. Sebald, and Ian Hamilton Finlay in the twentieth.
Life in Ruins: Architectural Culture and the Question of Death in the Twentieth Century. Saarbrücken: VMD Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, 2008.
“Landscape and Forgetting: On the Trope of Erosion in Late Twentieth Century Commemorative Architecture.” [Forthcoming].
“Time, Age, and Ruin: Intentions in Modern Funerary Design.” Ptah: Architecture, Design, Art 1 (2006): 21-28.
“Urban Funerary: Aldo Rossi and the Post-War Monument.” Chicago Art Journal 15 (2005): 40-58.
“Carlo Scarpa and the Burial Grounds of Modernism.” Ptah: Architecture, Design, Art 2 (2002): 24-32.
“Destinos Reversibles – Arakawa + Gins [Trans. Daniel Garza Usabiaga].” La Tempestad 8.53 (March-April 2007): 96-99.
“From Clockwork Bodies to Reversible Destinies (On the Architectural Experiments of Arakawa and Gins).” Art Papers 29.2 (March-April 2005): 34-39.
“Memory, Calamity and History in Japanese Art.” Parachute Contemporary Art Magazine: Para-Para 10 (April-June 2003): 4-5.
“The Construction Sites of Asian Art.” Asian Art News 13.2 (March-April 2003): 52-57.
“Vanessa Beecroft at the GAM, Palermo.” World Sculpture News 14.4 (Autumn 2008): 65-66.
“Huang Yong Ping at The Barbican Curve, London.” Asian Art News 18.5 (September-October 2008): 155-156.
“Mona Hatoum at the Parasol Unit, London.” World Sculpture News 14.3 (Summer 2008): 66-67.
“Mark Dean: Disco Maquette, London.” Art Papers 29.1 (January-February 2005): 58-59.
“Siobhan Hapaska: Playa de los Intranquilos, London.” Art Papers 28.5 (September-October 2004): 58-59.
“Gambiarra: New Art from Brazil, Colchester.” Art Papers 28.4 (July-August 2004): 58-59.
“Sounding Spaces: 9 Sound Installations at the ICC, Tokyo.” Art Papers 27.6 (November-December 2003): 59-60.
“Madeline Gins and Arakawa, Architectural Body.” Parachute Contemporary Art Magazine 110 (April-June 2003): 132.
“Landscape and Forgetting.” Landscape, Memory and Mourning (University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, June 2008)
“Life in Ruins (Accounting for a Tendency in Modern Funerary Design).” Association of Art Historians (University of Leeds, Leeds, England, April 2006)
“Time, Age, and Ruin: Intentions in Modern Funerary Design.” Association of Art Historians (Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland, July 2005)
“Death and the Cultural Landscape.” UNESCO Forum: “Cultural Landscapes in the Twenty-first Century” (Newcastle, England, April 2005)
Contact: joel.robinson@open.ac.uk
