Vid Simoniti

Vid Simoniti is a Slovenian philosopher of art, art historian and broadcaster based in the United Kingdom.^[1] He is senior lecturer in philosophy of art at the University of Liverpool, where his research focuses on the relationship between contemporary art and politics.^[2] He is the author of Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto (2023)^[3] and co-editor of Art and Knowledge After 1900: Interactions between Modern Art and Thought (2023).^[4]

In 2021 he was announced as a BBC New Generation Thinker and regularly hosts the Art Against the World podcast for Liverpool Biennial.^[5] In 2022 he was listed as one of Britannica's 20 under 40 "Shapers of the Future".^[6]

Simoniti was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He later moved to the United Kingdom to study on a scholarship at the University of Reading where he first specialised in philosophy, eventually undertaking doctoral research at the University of Oxford.^[7]

He completed his DPhil in 2015 with a thesis on the epistemic value of contemporary art submitted to the Ruskin School of Art at Christ Church, Oxford.^[8]

Before joining the University of Liverpool, Simoniti was the inaugural Jeffrey Rubinoff Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, where he taught in both the History of Art and Philosophy departments.^[9] He joined the Department of Philosophy at Liverpool in 2018.^[10][11]

At Liverpool he is senior lecturer in philosophy of art and directs the MA in Art, Philosophy and Cultural Institutions.^[2][10][11] His work explores how contemporary art can contribute to political understanding and social change, often combining philosophical analysis with close attention to artistic practice.^[12][3]

Simoniti has published on topics including socially engaged art, bio-art, conceptual art and the epistemic value of aesthetic experience.^[11][13] His articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the British Journal of Aesthetics and Oxford Art Journal.^[14][15][16]

Simoniti’s first book, Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto, was published by Yale University Press in 2023.^[3] The book surveys forms of contemporary political art such as socially engaged art, ecological art and evidence-based art, and argues that contemporary art can function as a distinctive mode of political experimentation.^[3][17] It has been discussed in scholarly reviews in journals including the British Journal of Aesthetics and elsewhere.^[18]

He is co-editor, with James Fox, of Art and Knowledge After 1900: Interactions between Modern Art and Thought (Manchester University Press, 2023).^[4][19] The volume traces exchanges between artistic practice and fields such as science, psychoanalysis, economics and cybernetics across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.^[4] Within the book, Simoniti contributes a chapter on art and biotechnology that examines how bio-art engages with and critiques the promises of biotechnology.^[13]

In addition to his work as author and editor, Simoniti has written essays for exhibition catalogues and art publications. His essay on the Bosnian television satire Top lista nadrealista and other Balkan examples of satire appears in the book Crack Up – Crack Down, published for the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts.^[20][21] His essay Balkan Myths and the Myth of the Balkans was included in the catalogue for artist Marina Abramović's major show Balkan Erotic Epic at Factory International in Manchester.

Much of Simoniti’s scholarly work develops an account of how art can contribute to knowledge and political understanding.

In Assessing Socially Engaged Art (2018) he proposes criteria for evaluating socially engaged art that take seriously both artistic and political dimensions of such work.^[14] Art as Political Discourse (2021) argues that political art can make distinctive contributions to public discourse that are not reducible to standard forms of political argument.^[15] In The Living Image in Bio-Art and in Philosophy (2019) he examines bio-art and philosophical images that use living matter, considering how such works challenge conventional understandings of images and persuasion.^[16]

Other writings include a chapter on the conceptual artist Adrian Piper in Adrian Piper: A Reader (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and further essays on art, politics and biotechnology.^[11][13]

In 2025 Simoniti delivered the paper Thinking without Knowing: a Defence of Aesthetic Cognitivism for the Aristotelian Society, developing an account of the epistemic value of artworks that leave audiences in a state of open-ended reflection.^[12]

In 2021 Simoniti was selected as one of the BBC New Generation Thinkers, a joint scheme of BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council that supports early career researchers in presenting their work to wider audiences.^[22][3][23] As part of this role he has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and related platforms discussing art and politics.^[22]

In collaboration with Liverpool Biennial he created and hosted the podcast series Art Against the World, in which he interviews artists whose work responds to issues such as climate change, colonial legacies and bodily transformation.^[11][24][25] He has also appeared on philosophy and culture podcasts, including episodes of The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast on art and political discourse.^[26]

Beyond radio and podcasting, Simoniti regularly gives public talks and collaborates with cultural institutions. His collaborations include work with the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale and with the Liverpool Biennial on curatorial and discursive projects.^[12][24]

• Simoniti, Vid (2023). Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300266290.
• Fox, James; Simoniti, Vid, eds. (2023). Art and Knowledge After 1900: Interactions between Modern Art and Thought. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526164261.

• Simoniti, Vid (2018). "Assessing Socially Engaged Art". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 76 (1): 71–82. doi:10.1111/jaac.12414.
• Simoniti, Vid (2019). "The Living Image in Bio-Art and in Philosophy". Oxford Art Journal. 42 (2) kcz007: 177–196. doi:10.1093/oxartj/kcz007.
• Simoniti, Vid (2021). "Art as Political Discourse". The British Journal of Aesthetics. 61 (4): 559–574. doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayab018.
• Simoniti, Vid (2023). "Art and biotechnology: on the limits and potential of interdisciplinary arts". In Fox, James; Simoniti, Vid (eds.). Art and Knowledge After 1900: Interactions between Modern Art and Thought. Manchester University Press.
• Simoniti, Vid (2019). "Low Blows: Martin Krpan, Top lista nadrealista, and equalizing satire". In Slavs and Tatars (ed.). Crack Up – Crack Down. MGLC/Mousse Publishing.

• Official website
• University profile