Routledge · 2024
Art, Elitism, Authenticity and Liberty
Navigating Paradox
A critical examination of the tensions between artistic freedom, cultural elitism, and the politics of authenticity in contemporary art and society.
Buy from RoutledgeAuthor · Critic · Academic
Writing from the edges of culture.
Paul Clements is the author of five books on outsider art, cultural exclusion and the politics of everyday life — most recently Art, Elitism, Authenticity and Liberty (Routledge, 2024).
Selected Books
Five volumes, two decades.
Routledge · 2020
The Outsider, Art and Humour
An investigation into the figure of the outsider in art and the disruptive, liberating role of humour as a tool for cultural critique.
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Routledge · 2016
The Creative Underground
Art, Politics and Everyday Life
On underground and counter-cultural art practices, the politics of everyday life, and the spaces where culture is genuinely made.
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From the journals.
2024
Book Review
Review: Howard Feather, 'Social Theory of Displacement: Adventures in the Everyday'
View on Goldsmiths ResearchWhat the writing is about
Culture from the margins.
The work circles a set of recurring questions: who gets to be called an artist, what counts as culture, and how power quietly sorts people into insiders and outsiders. These ideas run through the books, the articles, and the shorter pieces.
More about PaulRecurring themes
- —Outsider art & literature
- —Cultural exclusion
- —Public art & participation
- —Heterotopia & place
- —Beat movement & Bukowski
- —Post-communist culture
A note from Paul
“I'm drawn to what culture leaves out — to the outsider, the underground, the awkward and the inconvenient. Writing is how I try to take those things seriously.”
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