16.10.25, 19:00, David Maroto, The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts

Why do artists write novels? What does the artist’s novel do to the visual arts? How should such a novel be experienced?

Artist David Maroto presents The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts – a research project that finds its momentum in the current international art scene, where the debate about the hybridisation of visual arts and literature is becoming increasingly prominent. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of visual artists who create novels as part of their wider art projects. They do so in order to address artistic issues by means of novelistic devices, favouring a sort of art predicated on process and subjectivity, introducing notions that have traditionally adscribed to literature, such as fiction, narrative, identification, and imagination. In this sense, it is possible to speak of a new medium in the visual arts (exactly as video or performance, for example); yet, very little is known about it.

By discussing a number of key case studies, David’s presentation will aim to elucidate the pressing questions posed by the emergence of a new artistic medium with a theoretical and practice-based approach that critically examines the different ways contemporary artists have employed the artist’s novel. The intention is not to fix a definition of what the artist’s novel is, but rather to situate it within the broader field of the visual arts in the hopes of sparking a much-needed discussion about a practice that has long been ignored by the main critical strands in art discourse.

David Maroto

David Maroto is a Spanish visual artist based in the Netherlands and a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art, with a research project called The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts. It has been published in a two-volume book in English (Mousse Publishing, 2020) and Spanish (Greylock Editorial, 2025).

Maroto has an extensive international artistic practice: residence in URRA (Buenos Aires); Vigil Gonzales Gallery (Buenos Aires); Havana Biennial; Biennale Warszawa; Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels); W139 (Amsterdam); A Tale of a Tub (Rotterdam); Artium Museum of Contemporary Art (Vitoria); Extra City (Antwerp); S.M.A.K. (Ghent); EFA Project Space (New York); Pedrami Gallery (Antwerp); West (The Hague); The Opening Gallery (New York); SALT (Istanbul), a. o.

In 2011, he spent time at a residency in ISCP New York, where he met curator Joanna Zielińska and began a collaboration called The Book Lovers, a research project based on the creation of a collection and bibliography of artists' novels with the continuous support of M HKA (Antwerp). The Book Lovers explore the different ways in which the artist’s novel is employed as a medium in the visual artists, exactly as installation, video, or performance. The collection and bibliography are complemented with a series of exhibitions, performance programmes, publications, commissions, and pop-up bookstores. This collaboration has enabled them to engage with a host of international institutions, including Whitechapel Gallery (London); Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw); Kunstinstituut Melly (Rotterdam); CCA Glasgow; Fabra i Coats (Barcelona); Index (Stockholm); De Appel (Amsterdam); Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (Warsaw); a. o.

David has published numerous artists’ novels, essays, interviews, and articles, and edited various publications, including Artist Novels (Sternberg Press, 2015); Tamam Shud (Sternberg Press, 2018); and Obieg magazine no. 8, 'Art & Literature: A Mongrel's Guide' (2018), as well as the paper ‘Valid Fictional Contributions to Non-Fictional Debates: Fictocritical Writing in Artistic Research’ (Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis). He has also written for Caja Negra Editorial (Buenos Aires); EXIT art journal (Madrid); and Artforum.

David also has ample experience as a guest lecturer at international art academies, such as Dutch Art Institute; Gerrit Rietveld Academy; XPUB Piet Zwart Institute; Sint Lucas Antwerpen; Master Institute of Visual Cultures in Den Bosch; Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon; Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais, Sierre (Switzerland); Glasgow School of Art; and Stockholm University, a.o. In addition to lecturing, he has designed and taught diverse courses, workshops, and seminars, such as the Collective Novel Workshop at Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid.