The Back Story. Today you need a back story. In this directionless pluralist swamp, art is no longer defined by its chronological historical context but by the artists individual story, the personal narrative, that is, their ‘back story’, as the television talent contest the X Factor would have it. In the X Factor some family tragedy or some disabling injury will make the contestant more interesting, more credible, more worthy.  An artist’s biography has always helped our knowledge of the […]