Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Justin Clemens

Justin Clemens

Justin Clemens teaches in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. His recent books include Limericks, Philosophical and Literary (Surplus, 2019). With Thomas H. Ford, he is currently working on a monograph about the colonial judge and poet Barron Field.

Justin Clemens reviews 'Philosophy by Other Means: The arts in philosophy and philosophy in the arts' by Robert B. Pippin

November 2021, no. 437 25 October 2021
About as eminent an academic philosopher as they come these days, Robert B. Pippin made his reputation with a sequence of brilliant studies rehabilitating the great names of German Idealism – Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel – for a (mainly) baby boomer American audience. In the wake of the path-breaking interventions of Wilfrid Sellars and Richard Rorty, Pippin, alongside such colleagues as Terry ... (read more)

Justin Clemens reviews 'Contemporary Australian Drawing #1' by Janet McKenzie, with Irene Barberis and Christopher Heathcote

July–August 2012, no. 343 09 July 2012
Just because something is being done right now doesn’t make it contemporary. On the contrary, the predicate ‘contemporary’ in contemporary art is the name for a problem, not a clarified or self-evident state of affairs. As Boris Groys puts it, ‘This is because the contemporary is actually constituted by doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, indecision – by the need for prolonged reflection, fo ... (read more)

Justin Clemens reviews 'A Beautiful Line: Italian Prints from Mantegna to Piranesi' by Maria Zagala

November 2010, no. 326 01 November 2010
One of the notable things about living in a small country is that you can enjoy many first-rate second-rate things. Given the post-Renaissance domination of the visual arts by painting, prints have for a long time been driven into a supplementary role by artists, historians, and the market, and, as a result, have tended to be treated as minor works, curios, or historical illustrations. Because, mo ... (read more)