John C. Welchman is Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of California, San Diego and Chair Emeritus of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. His books on modern and contemporary art and visual culture include: Modernism Relocated: Towards a Cultural Studies of Visual Modernity (Allen & Unwin, 1995); Invisible Colours: A Visual History of Titles (Yale, 1997); Art After Appropriation: Essays on Art in the 1990s (Routledge, 2001); Guillaume Bijl (JRP|Ringier, 2016); Past Realization: Essays on Contemporary European Art (Sternberg, 2016) Catching Mayhem by its Tale, vol. 2, Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates (Hauser & Wirth, 2019); Tala Madani: Shit Moms (Vienna Secession, 2019); After the Wagnerian Bouillabaisse (Sternberg, 2019); Ivan Morley (Kordansky, Los Angeles, 2020); Richard Jackson (Hauser & Wirth, 2020); the innovative monograph Royal Book Lodge (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2023); Koen van der Broek: Out of Place (MER. B&L, 2023); and, ed. Orshi Drozdik: Adventure in Technos Dystopium (MER. B&L, 2024). Welchman is co-author of the Dada and Surrealist Word Image (MIT, 1987), Mike Kelley (Phaidon, 1999), Kwang-Young Chung (Rizzoli, 2014), and Joseph Kosuth’s The Second Investigation (1968-72) and Public Media (Sternberg, 2024). Stopgap Measures: Collected Writings on Mike Kelley is forthcoming in 2025.

Welchman is editor of Rethinking Borders (Minnesota, 1996), Institutional Critique and After (JRP|Ringier, 2006), The Aesthetics of Risk (JRP|Ringier, 2008); Black Sphinx: On the Comedic in Modern Art (JRP|Ringier, 2010); and Sculpture and the Vitrine [Subject /Object: New Studies in Sculpture series, Henry Moore Institute] (Ashgate, 2013); and of collected writings by Mike Kelley: Foul Perfection: Essays and Criticism (MIT, 2003); Minor Histories (MIT, 2004); Mike Kelley: Interviews, Conversations, and Chit-Chat, 1988-2004 (JRP|Ringier, 2005). He has written for Artforum (where he had a column in the late 1980s and early 90s), Screen, the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, the Economist; and contributed essays to catalogues and associated publications at Documenta, Louvre, Stedelijk Museum, Centre Pompidou, MoMA|PS1, Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool, Skulptur Projekte Münster, Reina Sophia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New Museum, Albertina, Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), LA County Museum of Art, Sydney Biennial, Venice Biennale, Vienna Museum of Contemporary Art, Haus der Kunst (Munich), MUAC (Mexico City), Mostyn (Wales), Edinburgh Festival, and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana.