Abigail Susik

Abigail Susik (born 1977) is an American art historian, art critic, curator, and theorist of avant-garde and contemporary art. Susik's scholarly research purview includes surrealism, dada, photography, experimental film, animation, protest art, erotic art, new media art, and projection mapping. Susik primarily writes about transnational surrealism, countercultural resistance movements, and anti-work or abolitionist theories including the history and theory of strike and sabotage. She is a Joint Editor of the Bloomsbury Publishing Transnational Surrealism Book Series and a Board Member of Charles H. Kerr Publishing. Susik is best known for her book Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work, published in 2021 by Manchester University Press, which has been reviewed by Michael Löwy, Joseph Nechvatal, Paul Buhle, and others. Her edited volumes have been reviewed in Frieze, Burlington Contemporary, Dada/Surrealism, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications.

Education After graduating with a B.A. in English, Art History, and Creative Writing from Barnard College in 1999, Susik studied in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Columbia University, receiving her M.A. in 2001, her M.Phil. in 2004, and her Ph.D. in 2009. During her graduate degrees, she studied with Rosalind Krauss, Benjamin Buchloh, Anne Higonnet, Jonathan Crary, John Rajchman, and Andreas Huyssen.

Career Susik is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Art History at Willamette University, as well as a faculty advisor for the Master of Arts Critical Studies Program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Between 2015 and 2019 she was a Member of the New Media Caucus Board of Directors and an Associate Editor of its publication, Media-N, Journal of the New Media Caucus.

From 2009-2011 Susik was a postdoctoral teaching fellow in Art History at Millsaps College. In 2022-2023 Susik was a City of Vienna/IFK Senior Fellow at the IFK International Research Center for Cultural Studies in Vienna, and in 2023-2024 she was the Allen W. Clowes Fellow at the National Humanities Center. In Autumn 2024, her co-curated retrospective of the surrealist artist Alan Glass opened at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. This major exhibition will travel to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in April (April 17-Steptember 28, 2025).

Research interests Susik's research focuses on modern and contemporary art and theory, the historiography of art history, Marxism, anarchism, Frankfurt School theory, Marxist feminism, social reproduction theory, labor theory of value, and the history of anti-capitalist protest movements. Her research on post-World War II radicalism in the United States resulted in published interviews and profiles on Paul Buhle, John P. Clark, Silvia Federici, Ben Morea, and Penelope Rosemont. She teaches a wide array of courses at Willamette University, including 18th through 21st century art history, a monographic course on Marcel Duchamp, methodologies of art history, Museology, History of photography, and a seminar on the critique and refusal of work. She is a regular contributor to radical publications such as Fifth Estate and Freedom. She authored or co-authored studies on artists and writers including Louis Aragon, Walter Benjamin, André Breton, Leonora Carrington, Óscar Domínguez, Marcel Duchamp, Isidore Ducasse, Max Ernst, Alan Glass, Eugène Grasset, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Konrad Klapheck, Michel Leiris, D. E. May, Man Ray, Hans Richter, Franklin Rosemont, Penelope Rosemont, Cy Twombly, and Jules Verne. Susik's book Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work was published in 2021 by Manchester University Press.

Works Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work (Author). Manchester University Press, 2021. . Absolutely Modern Mysteries: Surrealism and Film After 1945 (Editor, with Kristoffer Noheden). Manchester University Press, 2021. . Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance (Editor, with Elliott H. King). Penn State University Press, 2022. . Resurgence! Jonathan Leake, Radical Surrealism, and the Resurgence Youth Movement 1964-67 (Editor). Eberhardt Press, 2023. . Surrealism, Bugs Bunny, and the Blues: Selected Writings on Popular Culture, by Franklin Rosemont (Editor, with Paul Buhle). PM Press, 2025. . Enquiry on Magic Art by André Breton, Volume III of the Special Edition (Editor, with Robert Ansell, Tessel Bauduin). Fulgur Press, 2025. . Surrealism and Animation: Transnational Connections, 1920-Present (Editor). Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025. .