artwriting

Artwriting is a field that encompasses writing that engages with visual art as its subject, material, or context. It includes both text-based artworks in which language is the primary medium and prose, poetry, or essays produced to accompany or critique visual works. In practice, it often blends linguistic and visual strategies, using typography, layout, and image to produce meaning that is not entirely linguistic or solely pictorial.

Forms include artist's books that merge typography with images; public and installation texts such as wall panels, LED captions, and signs; ekphrasis-inspired poetry; visual or concrete poetry; and critical writing such as art criticism, curatorial texts, and exhibition catalogs. Artists may collaborate with writers to create interdisciplinary works or produce self-contained pieces.

Historically, artwriting grew with modern art movements that treated text as art, including Dada, conceptual and Fluxus practices, and the rise of artists' books in the mid-to-late 20th century. In contemporary practice, artists such as Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and Lawrence Weiner have used text as an artwork in its own right, while writers and critics analyze and contextualize visual art.

The field overlaps with ekphrasis, visual poetry, and asemic writing, and it is studied in art schools, literary programs, and publishing houses. It raises questions about the relation of language and image, authorship, and the reception of text within art environments.