Dr Matthew Bowman
Lecturer in Arts – Dissertation Lead
- Phone
- +44 (0)1473 338862
- M.Bowman@uos.ac.uk
- School/Directorate
- School of Business, Arts, Social Sciences and Technology
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With more than a hundred essays, Dr Matthew Bowman is a widely published art critic / art historian who leads the critical and contextual study elements of the Fine Art programme as well as contributes to studio-based tuition. He completed his PhD in art history at the University of Essex in 2008 with a dissertation on the influential art-critical journal October. Before that, he was awarded a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Bretton Hall College in 2000 and a MA in Modern Art History and Theory at the University of Essex in 2003. In addition to lecturing at undergraduate level, he is also a co-supervisor for practice-based Fine Art PhD candidates.
His core research focuses upon the relationship between art criticism (understood as both writing and more broadly as practice) and artworks. A particular focus of that research gravitates towards North American art criticism since the 1960s and, especially, the October journal as a major locus where art criticism is self-reflexively practiced. From this research an additional strand has become important that considers the work of the French art historian Hubert Damisch and his notion of the “theoretical object”—artworks that as materially-embodied and speculative “theories” enjoin the viewer to respond in kind; theory is not brought to bear upon the artwork but is its field of operation.
As a critic, Matthew Bowman has published most frequently in Art Monthly, one of the foremost spaces for art-critical writing in the United Kingdom. His criticism for Art Monthly often highlights practices happening in the East Anglian region. As well as reviews he has also written feature articles and spoken on the Art Monthly Radio Show. Bowman has also been published in Art History, Art Review, Burlington Contemporary, the Journal of Contemporary Painting, Oxford Art Journal, Visual Resources as well as numerous chapters in books.
Research and Context
Critical Perspectives
Research and Dissertation
Practice-based PhD in Fine Art
Publications
Selected Book Chapters
Bowman, Matthew (2026), “Surfaces et dessous: Hubert Damisch et Rosalind Krauss sur la peinture moderniste / Superficies y subsuelos: Hubert Damisch y Rosalind Krauss sobre la pintura moderna” in Gabriel Cabello, Sabine Guermouche, and Daniel Lesmes (eds.), Hubert Damisch y el pensamiento del arte. Sans Soleil Ediciones, Barcelona, Spain.
Bowman, Matthew (2025), “Painting: Terms and Conditions” in Chloë Julius, Mark `Rawlingson, and Will Atkin (eds.) . . . And Painting Continues. Office of Extension Activities., Nottingham.
Bowman, Matthew (2024), “Dear Daniel & Clara” in Daniel & Clara (eds.), Birding. Angel Press.
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “The Prospect of Landscape” in Landscape of the Gods. Cross Lane Projects, Kendall.
Bowman Matthew (2020), “Generations of Erlebnis / Erlebnisgenerationen” in Bärbel Grässlin, Christof Kerber, Christian Malycha (eds.), Markus Oehlen. Berlin, Kerber Verlag.
Bowman, Matthew (2014) “For a Concept of Immaterial Indestructibility” in Camila Maroja and Caroline Menzies (eds.) The Permanence of the Transient. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2014, pp. 30-41.
Bowman, Matthew (2014) “Shapes of Time: Melancholia, Anachronism, De-Distancing” in Amanda Boetzkes and Aron Vinegar (eds.), Heidegger and the Work of Art History. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 173-194.
Bowman, Matthew (2013), “Rosalind Krauss” in Mark Durden (ed.), Fifty Key Writers on Photography. London and New York, Routledge, pp. 149-154.
Bowman, Matthew (2008), “The New Critical Historians of Art?” in James Elkins and Michael Newman (eds.), The State of Art Criticism. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 289-295.
Selected Essays and Articles
Bowman, Matthew (2026), “Gerhard Richter, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris” in Burlington Contemporary, February. Available here: https://contemporary.burlington.org.uk/reviews/reviews/gerhard-richter
“Bowman, Matthew (2025), Review of Polumi Basu, Always Coming Home, Focal Point Gallery” in Art Monthly 492 December-January.
Bowman, Matthew (2025), “Review of Abstract Erotic: Alice Adams, Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse” in Art Monthly 489, September.
Bowman, Matthew (2025), “Review of Fiona Banner AKA The Vanity Press, Frith Street Gallery” in Art Monthly 486, May.
Bowman, Matthew (2024), Glenn Ligon, All Over the Place” in Art Monthly 481, November.
Bowman, Matthew (2024), “It’s Art Historian’s Aby Warburg’s World and We Are Just Living in It” in ArtReview, October. (peer-reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew (2024), “Richard Serra, Beyond Minimalism (Obituary)” on ArtReview, 28 March. https://artreview.com/richard-serra-beyond-minimalism-obituary-1938-2024/
Bowman, Matthew (2024), “Review of Grant Kester” in Art Monthly 473, February.
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “American-Type Art Criticism” in Journal of Art Historiography 29. https://arthistoriography.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bowman-rev.pdf (peer-reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “Mirror, Mirror” in Art Monthly 470, October. (peer-reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “Review of Rebecca Moss: Unstable Condition at Focal Point Gallery” in Art Monthly 469, September
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “Public Destructions: Sam Durant’s Iconoclasm at the University of Essex” UoE Blog, 3 March 2023: https://www.essex.ac.uk/blog/posts/2023/03/03/public-destructions-sam-durants-iconoclasm
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “Review of Vanessa Billy and Emma McNally, Time Spirals at Large Glass Gallery, London” in Art Monthly 463, February.
Bowman, Matthew (2023), “Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Gerhard Richter: Painting after the Subject of History” in Burlington Contemporary, January 2023. Available here: https://contemporary.burlington.org.uk/reviews/reviews/gerhard-richter-painting-after-the-subject-of-history
Bowman, Matthew (2022), ““Painting, Writing, Plasticity, Presence: On Molly Warnock’s Simon Hantaï and the Reserves of Painting” in Nonsite 39. Available here: https://nonsite.org/simon-hantai-and-the-reserves-of-painting/ (peer-reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew (2022), ““The Haunting of a Modernism Conceived Differently” in InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal of Visual Culture, n. 33, Winter 2022 (peer-reviewed). Available here: https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/the-haunting-of-a-modernism-conceived-differently/
Bowman, Matthew (2021) “Representing Destruction” in Art Monthly 449, September. (peer-reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew “On Critical Distance” in Art Monthly 447, June.
Bowman, Matthew (2021), “Art Criticism in the Contracted Field” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 79, n. 2, Spring 2021, pp. 200-212. (peer-reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew (2020), “The Work of Art Criticism: Collaboration, Communication, Community” in Arts, volume 9, issue 4, September. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/9/4/101 (peer-reviewed)
Bowman, Matthew (2020), “The Experience of Formalism” in Art History, vol. 43, issue 3, June 2020 (peer-reviewed)
Bowman, Matthew (2019), "The Intertwining—Damisch, Bois, and October's Rethinking of Painting" in Journal of Contemporary Painting, volume 5, issue 1, April, pp. 99-116. doi: 10.1386/jcp.5.1.99_1 (peer-reviewed)
Bowman, Matthew (2018), “Indiscernibly Bad: The Problem of Bad Painting/Good Art,” in Oxford Art Journal, volume 41, number 3, December 2018, pp. 321-339. (Peer reviewed).
Bowman, Matthew (2015), “October’s Postmodernism” in Visual Studies: A Journal of Documentation, vol. 31 nos 1-2, 2015, pp. 117-126 (peer-reviewed publication).
Selected Conferences Lectures and Talks
“A Haunted Landscape” (May 2025), Munnings Art Museum, Dedham
“The Vietnam War did not take place! experiencing, and experience in, Fiona Banner's THE NAM” (April 2025) Association for Art Historian annual conference, University of York
“Having Words with Painting: October contra Neoexpressionism” (May 2024), And Painting Continues conference, University of Nottingham.
“Dark Prospects, Haunted Suffolk Landscapes”(May 2024), Ipswich Art Society series of talks.
“Hubert Damisch” (April 2024), Hubert Damisch: Disséminer la pensée de l’art et de ses objets at Institut mémoire de l’édition contemporaine, Caen, France.
“Behind / Underneath/ Interlacing: Damisch and Krauss Apropos the In(-)Visbility of the Theoretical Object” (November 2023), Hubert Damisch y los trabajos del arte, Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid, Spain.
“In conversation with Sam Durant and Jes Fernie” (April 2023) Art Exchange, University of Essex.
“Philip Armstrong, Matthew Bowman, Mick Finch in Conversation with Christian Bonnefoi” (September 2019) at Christian Bonnefoi: The Anteriority of the Future 2019 – 1978, Campoli Presti, London.
“The Intertwining—Damisch, Bois, and October’s Rethinking of Painting” (June 2018) at Painting as ReModel: Revisiting Painting as Model, Camberwell College of the Arts
“The Crux of Minimalist Criticism” (October 2016) at the Minimalism: Location Aspect Moment conference, Winchester School of Art, Winchester.
“Frontality/Facingness: The Surface Beyond Flatness” (November 2015) at the Revisiting the Surface Conference, National Gallery, Oslo.
Radio / Podcasts
“Matthew Bowman and Bob Dickinson” (2023), Art Monthly Talk Show, presented by Matt Hale on Resonance FM. https://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/events/matthew-bowman-bob-dickinson-talk-show-october-2023
“Matthew Bowman interviewed by Matt Hale” (2021), Art Monthly Talk Show, presented by Matt Hale on Resonance FM.
https://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/events/matthew-bowman-talk-show-september-2021
“Matthew Bowman, Chris Wassilak, Rob La Frenais, and Mark Wilsher,” (2015) Art Monthly Talk Show, presented by Matt Hale on Resonance FM https://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/events/matthew-bowman-chris-fite-wassilak-rob-la-frenais-mark-wilsher-talk-show-oc
Association for Art History
Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, UK branch (AICA UK)
Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art
British Art Network