ABSTRACT
The history of art has had comparatively few interventions into what can be generally called sub-altern studies. I use that term not to refer to the activity of recuperating categories of art for traditional documentation, but rather to the analysis of ways in which those categories are determined and their consequent effects and implications for cultural practice. There are increasing examples of the first, which serve to save information as well as to feed ever-widening markets. The second is much rarer in our field because it assumes the first and radically alters the categories of the discipline. It is this alteration that is the focus of this essay.
