Paul Taylor (art critic)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Paul Taylor (Melbourne, 1957–7 September 1992) was an Australian art critic, curator, editor and publisher. In 1981, he founded Art & Text, the contemporary art journal considered to be responsible for generating and promoting postmodernist discourse in Australian art.
Art & Text
Taylor's journal Art & Text presented a new vision for Australian art that was grounded in the translation, interpretation and application of French poststructuralist theory to contemporary art. In 1983, issue 11 included the first English translation of Jean Baudrillard’s essay "The Precession of Simulacra". Taylor maintained an enduring commitment to New Wave sub-culture and its subsequent theorisation by sociologists such as Dick Hebdige. Notably influential on Taylor's thinking was Hebdige's book 1979 book, Subculture: The Meaning of Style.
Under Taylor's editorship, Art & Text worked closely with contemporary artists to publish both their writings and their artworks in the form of artist pages. These artists included Imants Tillers, John Nixon, Maria Kozic, Peter Tyndall, Howard Arkley, David Chesworth, Philip Brophy, Juan Davila and Vivienne Shark LeWitt among others.
Following a symposium organised by Monash University's MUMA in September 2012, a plan to produce a book about Taylor was announced. In December 2013, Helen Hughes and Nicholas Croggon released Impresario: Paul Taylor, The Melbourne Years, 1981-1984.
