The texts included in the book have been written at irregular intervals, mostly over the past seven years. Three are their common characteristics: firstly, they have been written by the same person (whatever that means), secondly, they concern, in one way or another, the history of art, and thirdly, while many of them were intended for publication, they ultimately remained (with two exceptions) unpublished (some even did not reach the intended audience despite that being their original purpose). In short, they failed. This publication restores this "injustice" that the texts suffered. Hence the title Restitutions (which, in another context, Derrida uses for painting).
Along with them, those that were not intended for publication also benefit. The texts have been informally divided into three groups for functional reasons, regardless of their writing chronology. They can, of course, be read in any order. The texts are presented in the form in which they were written, sometimes retaining their "oral" character.
Contents: Art and resistance / Humanitarian destruction: humanitarianism as destruction / On limits and terms: contemporary art and art history / New art history and cultural studies: one step forward two steps back? / Art, memory, repression: the archive today / What to do? / Modernism and the visual arts: the Greek case / Tériade: art critic and collector / (To Kyrillos Sarris) / The photographic image: between the "event" and the "invention" (a comment on analog and digital technology) / The museum: a historical topology / Art book curators: the carefully absent / Art history for artists / Callistratus: the poor relative of Philostratus.
Nikos Daskalothanasis is a professor of modern and contemporary art history in the Department of Theory and History of Art at the Athens School of Fine Arts. He has published a monograph on Giorgio de Chirico (The Painting of Giorgio de Chirico: the articulation of metaphysical space, Athens, Opera/Critica publications, 2001), a book on the historical role of the artist (The Artist as Historical Subject: from the 19th to the 21st century, Athens, Agra publications, 2004), and a study on the early formation of art history in Europe (Art History: the birth of a new science: from the 19th to the 21st century, Athens, Agra publications, 2013). He is responsible for the periodic publication Art History (Futura publications).
