Mappers, Mapmakers, and Cartographers and Where to Find Them in Contemporary Art (a Modest Proposal)

Marcello Tanca

2024-01-01

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Abstract

The so-called ‘art map age’, a phenomenon marked by the convergence of visual arts and cartography, emerged between the 1960-70s and early 2000s. The close relationship between cartographic and artistic language is a ‘commonplace’ of the present world: if the artistic experiments with the maps have been supported by a vast bibliography, in this paper I follow a strictly geographical approach to describe some trends of contemporary art. I take inspiration from a terminological distinction introduced by Arthur Robinson and Barbara Petchenik: and that is between ‘mapper’, ‘mapmaker’ and ‘cartographer’. Furthermore, combining the ‘types’ of the mapper, the mapmaker, and the cartographer with the different attitudes regarding maps (as medium, image, abstraction, etc.), I will suggest a small classification scheme.