Table Of Content“An unprecedented study of the art novel’s fascination with the con-
vergence of art and life in our times, when to live like an artist can
mean to barely scrape by on contingent work in informal economies,
but also to devote oneself to fathoming and fabricating a world
beyond privation. With remarkable global breadth, and one wary eye
always fixed on art’s incorporation into global capitalism, Carlos
Garrido Castellano has written an indispensable book about how
literature envisions the unfulfilled promise of artmaking as a model
for a flourishing life.”
Sarah Brouillette, Carleton University
Literary Fictions of the Contemporary
Art System
The main objective of this book is to explain how contemporary litera-
tures in Spanish and Portuguese are dealing with artistic creativity when
artmaking is no longer a specialized field of cultural production, but
rather an expanded field of socioeconomic interaction, personal and cre-
ative self-definition and collective imagination. The project positions the
contemporary art novel as the most suitable place to understand how the
economization of cultural labor is affecting writers and artists alike. The
authors examined in this book, including José Saramago, Rita Indiana
Hernández, María Gainza, Mayra Santos Febres and Ondjaki (among
others), explore the contradictions of the art market, the dynamics of art
education, and the multifaceted activity of curators and socially engaged
artists in relation to broader debates on the role of culture in the configu-
ration of socioeconomic dynamics. The book maps a new trend within
contemporary literature that taps into the visual art system to reassess the
role of literature in critical ways.
Carlos Garrido Castellano is Lecturer at University College Cork, Ireland.
Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
Multilingual Currents in Literature, Translation and Culture
Edited by Rachael Gilmour and Tamar Steinitz
Rewriting the American Soul
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Anna Thieman
Milton and the Early Modern Culture of Devotion
Milton and the Early Modern Culture of Devotion
Naya Tsentourou
No Dialect Please, You’re a Poet
English Dialect in Poetry in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Edited by Claire Hélie, Elise Brault-Dreux and Emilie Loriaux
Mediterranean Slavery and World Literature
Captivity Genres from Cervantes to Rousseau
Edited by Mario Klarer
Literature with a White Helmet
The Textual-Corporeality of Being, Becoming, and Representing Refugees
Lava Asaad
Literary Fictions of the Contemporary Art System
Global Perspectives in Spanish and Portuguese
Carlos Garrido Castellano
Language, Style and Variation in Contemporary Indian English Texts
Esterino Adami
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Interdisciplinary-Perspectives-on-Literature/book-series/
RIPL
Literary Fictions of the
Contemporary Art System
Global Perspectives in Spanish and
Portuguese
Carlos Garrido Castellano
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 Carlos Garrido Castellano
The right of Carlos Garrido Castellano to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechani-
cal, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trade-
marks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifica-
tion and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Garrido Castellano, Carlos, author.
Title: Literary fictions of the contemporary art system : global
perspectives in Spanish and Portuguese / Carlos Garrido Castellano.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge
interdisciplinary perspectives on literature | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022010957 (print) | LCCN 2022010958 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367714567 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032302874 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003152118 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Spanish fiction--21st century--History and criticism. |
Portuguese fiction--21st century--History and criticism. | Spanish
American fiction--21st century--History and criticism. | Creativity in
literature. | Art in literature. | LCGFT: Literary criticism.
Classification: LCC PQ6144 .G37 2022 (print) | LCC PQ6144 (ebook) | DDC
860.09--dc23/eng/20220505
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010957
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010958
ISBN: 978-0-367-71456-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-30287-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-15211-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003152118
Typeset in Sabon
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Art F(r)ictions: Assessing the
Contemporary Art Novel 1
PART I
Do We Live in Neoliberal Art Worlds? 27
2 The Aesthetics of Narcocapitalist Politics 29
3 Art Economies and Energy Colonialism, Luanda
Version 52
PART II
Literature and Artistic Subjectivity 79
4 Redefining Artistic Expertise in Pre- and
Post-crisis Portugal 81
5 “Killing Several Birds with One Stone”: Art Activism
and Financial Speculation in the Dominican Republic 109
PART III
The Contemporary Art Novel: Forms, Uses, Formations 139
6 The Novel after Art Theory: Neoliberalism as
Reterritorialization in the Spanish State 141
viii Contents
7 The Phenomenology of the Art Novel 171
8 The Transdividual Art Novel 194
Index 214
Acknowledgments
I wrote most part of this book in isolation between 2020 and 2021. I had,
however, the invaluable support of several colleagues who provided
invaluable feedback on specific chapters. Thanks to Nuala Finnegan,
Miguel Ángel Hernández Navarro, Ana Gallego and Sara Brouillette.
Thanks also to all my colleagues at University College Cork for being
there in difficult times and making this project possible. As always, thanks
to Pat for her patience and support in the process of proofreading and
preparing the final version of this monograph. Thanks to the Routledge
editorial team for providing continuous support along the way. Finally, as
always, my most sincere gratitude goes to Leonor, who had the patience
of reading the manuscript in detail and what is more important, of sup-
porting me along the way.
The research for this monograph was partially funded by the project
“El amor y sus reversos. Pasión, deseo y dominio en las relaciones senti-
mentales a través del arte contemporáneo. Investigación y creación
artística” (PGC2018-093404-B100).
