Lauren Warner-Treloar
Contact
- Email: lauren.warner@kingston.ac.uk
- Location: Kingston School of Art, Knights Park
- Faculty: Kingston School of Art
- School: School of Creative and Cultural Industries
- Department: Department of Critical and Historical Studies
- Research group/centre: Visual and Material Culture Research Centre (VMCRC)
- Personal website
Research project: 'Sound Art and Visual Culture: The Anti-Book Experiment in the Romanov Empire and the USSR, 1881-1932'
Abstract
I am engaged in research on the futurist books produced by artists and writers in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Tbilisi, with a particular focus on the collection held by the British Library. This project examines the innovative multi-sensory books, or ‘anti-books', produced through the experimental collaborations of the early twentieth-century artists and writers known as the futurists. Artists of all descriptions throughout the twentieth century engaged in the book experiment, consisting of the interplay of sound, text, image, materials, and performativity, resulting in an important, yet under-explored, artistic platform: the artist's book. For the first time, the anti-books' performativity is addressed, and they are examined within the wider context of the turbulent political, cultural, and artistic developments of the period. Using case studies focusing on the collaborations of the poets Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) and Aleksei Kruchenykh (1886-1969), and the painter Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), along with a few notable secondary collaborators, the project explores their engagement in the book experiment and how their results aligned with or departed from those of their European counterparts.
- Research degree: PhD
- Title of project: 'Sound Art and Visual Culture: The Anti-Book Experiment in the Romanov Empire and the USSR, 1881-1932'
- Research supervisor: Professor Fran Lloyd
Biography
Lauren Warner-Treloar is an AHRC Techne PhD candidate at Kingston School of Art. Her project is entitled "Sound Art and Visual Culture: The Anti-Book Experiment in the Romanov Empire and the USSR, 1881-1932". She is also a Postgraduate Member of the Royal Historical Society. She has an MA in Russian and Applied Linguistics from Bryn Mawr College and an MA in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art. After graduating from the Courtauld, she worked as a cataloguer at Sotheby's and served as manager of The Malevich Society for more than five years. She has written articles and reviews for various platforms and publications including The Burlington Magazine, The British Library's European studies blog, and H-SHERA.
Second supervisor (external): Professor John Milner (Courtauld Institute of Art)
Areas of research interest
- Artists' books
- Interrelationship of sound, text, image, and materials
- Printmaking
- Futurism
- Typography
- History of the book
- Cultural identity
- Performance
- Dadaism
Qualifications
- MA in Art History, Courtauld Institute of Art
- MA in Russian, Bryn Mawr College (USA)
- BA in Russian, German, and History, Oakland University (USA)
Funding or awards received
- Visual and Material Culture Research Centre Research Support Fund
- Association of Print Scholars Collaboration Grant
- Techne AHRC DTP Studentship
- Kingston University Research Studentship
- Turing Grant
- Kingston School of Art Conference and Event Fund
- Kingston Graduate Research School Research Activity Support Fund
- Bryn Mawr College Fellowship
Publications
- Warner-Treloar on Hagan, 'The Space between Look and Read: Designing Complementary Meaning', H-Net Reviews, H-SHERA (April 2024).
- From the Book ‘Wooden Idols': An Anti-Book. The British Library, European studies blog (19 July 2023).
- ‘Biographies of Artists', in the Royal Academy's Revolution. Russian Art 1917-1932 (11 February – 17 April 2017) exhibition catalogue, pp. 321-326.
- Royal Academy Curators: Interview with Natalia Murray, Ann Dumas, and John Milner, the three curators of the Royal Academy's Revolution. Russian Art 1917-1932 (11 February – 17 April 2017) exhibition, in Russian Art Week Guide, 25 November – 2 December 2016.
- Review of The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture, 2nd ed, by Nicholas Rzhevsky, in Slavic and East European Information Resources (June 2015).
- Review of Künstlermuseen. Die russische Avantgarde und ihre Museen für Moderne Kunst by Christiane Post, in The Burlington Magazine (January 2014).
Conference papers
- 'Crossing Boundaries: The Transnational Futurist Anti-Book Collaborations of Transcaucasia (1917-1922)'. BASEES Annual Conference, 5-7 April 2024.
- 'Intermedial Innovations: The Panfuturists' Book Experiment'. BASEES Annual Conference, 31 March - 2 April 2023.
- 'Intangibility and Materiality: Digital Collections of Futurist Anti-Books', DRHA 2022: 'Digital Sustainability: From Resilience to Transformation', hosted by Kingston School of Art, 4-7 September 2022.
- 'Wood and Paper Treasures in the Russian Collection', Dorich House: Russian Winter Weekend, 2 December 2021 (postponed to 4 February 2022).
- 'From "Wooden Idols' Book": A Collaboration Between Russian Creators of Sound Art and Visual Culture'. ASEEES Virtual Convention, 2-3 December 2021.