Researching and writing about contemporary art and artists present unique challenges for scholars, students, professional critics and creative practitioners alike. This collection of essays from across the arts disciplines—music, literature, dance, theatre and the visual arts—explores the challenges and complexities raised by engaging in researching and writing on living or recently deceased subjects and their output. Different sections explore critical perspectives and case studies in relation to innovative, distinctive or otherwise leading work, as well as offering innovative modes of discourse such as a visual essay and a music composition. Subjects addressed include recent scandals of Canadian literary celebrity, late-career output, the written element of music composition PhDs, and the boundaries between ethnography and hagiography, with case studies ranging from Howard Barker to Adrian Piper to Sylvie Guillem and Misty Copeland.

General Introduction.- 1. Writing About Contemporary Creative Art and Artists.- Christopher Wiley and Ian Pace.- PART I: Critical Perspectives.- 2. The Artist is Present: Scandal and the Academic Study of the Living Artist.- Lorraine York.- 3. From vocational calling to career construction: Late-career authors and critical self-reflection.- Hywel Dix.- 4. An Introduction to the Persistence of Art Writing.- Bob Dickinson.- 5. The purpose of the written element in composition PhDs.- Christopher Leedham and Martin Scheuregger.- 6. Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Western Art Music: Questions of Context, Realism, Evidence, Description and Analysis.- Ian Pace.- 7. When Ethnography becomes Hagiography: Uncritical Musical Perspectives.- Ian Pace.- PART II: Case Studies Across the Arts.- 8. Writing Catastrophe: Howard Barker and the Body.- Andy W. Smith.- 9. Writing the Ballerina: Sylvie Guillem, Misty Copeland and Lessons in Biography.- Jill Brown.- 10.  Amend the Arena: On Adrian Piper’s Work.- Vered Engelhard.- 11. Memory and Irony in The Apollonian Clockwork.- Joel M. Baldwin.- 12.  Artfrom: Researching the canon through publications of art and design.- Mimi Cabell and Phoebe Stubbs.- PART III: Art Considered on its Own Terms.- 13. Occlusionary Tactics (visual essay).-‘Bob’ Whalley.-14.  Abstracts (music composition, 2015).- Richard Birchall.- 15. MusicArt: Creating Dialogues Across the Arts.- Annie Yim, in conversation with Christopher Wiley.