Noam M. Elcott is an American scholar, art historian, and educator whose work focuses on modern and contemporary art, media theory, photography, and film history. He is currently an associate professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.
Early life and education
Elcott was born to Shira Milgrom, a rabbi, and David M. Elcott, a professor at Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
Elcott completed his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, graduating summa cum laude in 2000. He was a Fulbright scholar at Freie Universität Berlin, where he studied art history and philosophy, in 2000 and 2001. He earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2009. He was a fellow at the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie (IKKM) at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
Research interests
Elcott's research and teaching focus on the history of modern art and media in Europe and North America, particularly emphasizing interwar art, contemporary art, and critical theory. He employs close visual analysis and media archaeology in his work. His recent courses include graduate seminars on the Bauhaus, Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, media architecture, and the avant-garde cinematic imaginary, as well as undergraduate lectures on "Art, Media, and the Avant-Garde," "Histories of Photography," and "Art Humanities."
Publications and editorial work
Elcott is the author of Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2016. The book examines various figures, including Étienne-Jules Marey, Richard Wagner, Georges Méliès, and Oskar Schlemmer, and is the first to conceive, historicize, and theorize the concept of artificial darkness in relation to modern art and media. It received the 2017 Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Award and was a finalist for the 2017 First Book Prize from the Modernist Studies Association.
Elcott is an editor of the journal Grey Room, which publishes scholarly and theoretical articles from the fields of architecture, art, media, and politics. He co-directed The August Sander Project (MoMA/Columbia), a five-year initiative examining Sander's photo-portrait of German society, People of the Twentieth Century.
Selected publications
- Elcott, Noam M. Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media. University of Chicago Press, 2016.
- Elcott, Noam M. The Manufacturer’s Signature: Trademarks and Other Signs of Authenticity on Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Grey Room 94 (Winter 2024): 114–63.
- Elcott, Noam M., editor. Special Issue: Art After Copyright. Grey Room 94 (Winter 2024).
- Elcott, Noam M. Kubism™: Picasso, Trademarks, and Bouillon Cube. Arts 13, no. 1 (2024).
- Elcott, Noam M. A Brief History of Artificial Darkness and Race. In Rethinking Darkness: Borders, Landscapes, Practices, edited by Nick Dunn and Timothy Edensor, 61–76. London: Routledge, 2021.
References
- "Sonic Acts | Archive". sonicacts.com. Retrieved 2025-01-05.
- ^ "Noam Elcott Illuminates the History of Artificial Darkness". Columbia News. 2025-01-04. Retrieved 2025-01-05.
- ^ França, Renan (2014-10-23). "Noam Elcott, arqueólogo e historiador da arte: 'Em breve, estaremos cercados de fantasmas'". O Globo.
- Liu, Emma. "Art Humanities adds women, artists of color to syllabus in first significant revision since 1947". Columbia Daily Spectator. Retrieved 2025-01-05.
- ^ "Julie Ehrlich, Noam Elcott". The New York Times. 2009-05-16. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-01-05.
- Fielke, Giles (2017-11-01). "Neither Black Nor White". Art History. 40 (5): 1127–1130. doi:10.1111/1467-8365.12347. ISSN 0141-6790.
- Grube, Katherine; Jiang, Zoe Meng (2019-05-04). "Chaotic formats". Journal of Chinese Cinemas. 13 (2): 109–111. doi:10.1080/17508061.2019.1669849. ISSN 1750-8061.
- Elcott, Noam M.; Adler, Amy (2024-01-01). "Editors' Introduction: Art beyond Copyright". Grey Room (94): 6–19. doi:10.1162/grey_e_00387. ISSN 1526-3819.