The Diaristic Mode in Contemporary Art after Barthes

The rise of the diaristic mode in contemporary art might seem like the return of the dead author in a particularly self-absorbed frame of mind. Yet the diary is a form of writing that relinquishes authorial control to the passing moods and contingencies of the day. The diarist writes hastily, automatically, involuntarily, thereby giving access to insights unavailable to deliberation. An account of Roland Barthes's Mourning Diary, 2009, and his reflections on the diary as a form of writing serve to introduce the diaristic work of two contemporary artists, Moyra Davey and Susan Morris. Their work is directly informed by Barthes's and others' experiments with a mode of address that is intimate, but also de-centred and fragmentary.