The Significance of Authorial ‘Play Spaces’ for Seriously Funny Art

This chapter argues that comedy in art needs more nuanced, academic attention. It posits that humour is not necessarily transformative and that funny artworks should not be superficially compared as a genre. Instead, it is argued that a play space for the ‘seriousness’ of the artworld is first needed for artwork jokes to be more effective; to provoke debate and make change. It uses an interdisciplinary approach, traversing feminism, authorship theories, art history and comedy studies to consider authorial dissidence as one form of creating a play space which allows for the appreciation of seriously funny art. It uses a series of artistic case studies, ranging from the early twentieth century to date, which all straddle the inside and out of the capitalist, Euro-American, patriarchal artworld via their incongruous authorships, such as pseudonyms or anonymity. They are thus discussed as artworld jesters who poke fun at the ‘court’, their liminal positions serve as unique perspectives from which to analyse the agency of critical humour in art, contributing to this emerging scholarship.