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Photography courtesy of the University of Newcastle

A B O U T   M E

I am an art theorist, educator, researcher, critic and Professor of Art at Curtin University, Australia. 

 

Since 1997, I have taught art history at universities in Australia and Hong Kong and I am currently a Professor in Art at the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, Curtin University, Australia. 

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I am the Lead Investigator on the 'Art of Peace' project, a three-year ARC linkage project in partnership with the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the National Trust (NSW), with a team of researchers from University of NSW, University of Melbourne, University of the Arts London, Cal State LA and Oberlin College.  And was the Lead Investigator of the 2018-2021 'Art in Conflict' ARC linkage project with the Australian War Memorial and the National Trust (NSW), with a team of researchers from University of Melbourne, University of NSW and University of Manchester.  Together these two projects have been granted $729,364 from the ARC.  

 

I have won multiple awards for teaching, publish frequently in peer-reviewed and popular press (ArtforumArt & AustraliaThe Conversation). I am the author of Double War: Shaun Gladwell, visual culture and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Thames & Hudson Australia) and co-author with Uroš ÄŒvoro of Images of War in Contemporary Art (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The Trump Effect: Populism, Politics, and Paranoia in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture.  I am the lead editor of the third book from the 'Art in Conflict' project, The Politics of Art in War Zones: Art in Conflict (Bloomsbury, 2024).  

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I grew up in Wales, moved to Australia in 1990, and graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours Class 1) in 1994. I was awarded a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of New South Wales in 2000, with a doctoral thesis examining the role of affect in political conflicts surrounding contemporary art in the 1990s.

B O O K S

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Kit Messham-Muir, Uroš ÄŒvoro and Monika Lukowska-Appel (eds.)
The Politics of Art in War Zones: Art in Conflict

Bloomsbury, 2024

"A monumental and richly curated volume that challenges our notions of war itself, questioning how mass violence comes to count as meaningful and worthy of official membory.

Roger Stahl
Professor of Communication Studies,
University of Georgia, USA

The Politics of Artists in War Zones: Art in Conflict,

Cover design: Abdul Abdullah, All Let Us Rejoice, manual embroidery made with the assistance of DGTMB Studios, Yogyakarta.  Courtesy of the artist and Yavuz gallery. 

trump effec.jpeg

Kit Messham-Muir & Uroš ÄŒvoro
The Trump Effect
in Contemporary Art
and Visual Culture

Bloomsbury, 2023

"This book analyses the linked world view and aesthetics of the resurgent far right, including the 'paranoid epistemology' of QAnon and the 'gamification' of its propaganda, along with provocative readings about the relation of contemporary art to a consciously performative politics–among leaders and followers alike.

Julian Stallabrass
Professor of Art,
Courtauld Institute of Art, UK

The Trump Effect in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture,

Cover design: Tjasa Krivec, Cover image: The “Trump Baby” blimp, designed by Matt Bonner, now in the collection of the Museum of London. Photo: AP. © Mike Kemp/Getty Images

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Uroš ÄŒvoro & Kit Messham-Muir
Images of War in Contemporary Art:
Terror and Conflict in the Mass Media

Bloomsbury, 2021

"Lucid, expansive, and necessarily unsparing in its critique of intellectual orthodoxies, Images of War is an urgently important book." 

Rebecca A. Adelman
Professor and Chair, Department of Media and
Communication Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County 

Images of War In Contemporary Art: Terror and Conflict in the Mass Media, cover design: Toby Way.  

Double War is

"...one of the most significant and original interpretations of the space and time of war."

 

Vivienne Jabri

Professor of International Politics

 Department of War Studies

King’s College London

Kit Messham-Muir
Double War:
Shaun Gladwell, Visual Culture and
the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Thames & Hudson, 2015

Double War: Shaun Gladwell, Visual Culture and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, published by Thames & Hudson Australia.  Photo: Ossie Morris.  224 page, full colour, hard back. ISBN: 978-0-500-500054-5. Release date: 1 July 2015, RRP AU$49.99. Edited by Matt Price. Designed by Joe Gilmore / Qubik

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​BVA Hons I (Usyd), GCertPTT (UoN), PhD (UNSW)

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