"Vis-a-vis" means "in regard to" or "in comparison to." I think it is being misused here, and the writer meant "via/through/by means of."

in relation to, regarding It can also mean 'as compared with' or 'as opposed to'.

Hi, Adey - I don't understand quite how this sentence could work for "vis-a-vis" meaning "compared to." That would make the main clause: - Artists talk back to other artists compared to their works. That doesn't make sense grammatically. But if that's fixed by changing "compared to" to "by comparing," we get: - Artists talk back to other artists by comparing their works. While artists could talk back to each other by meeting each other and directly comparing their works, I don't think that's the activity the original sentence was trying to describe. But it would make sense to say: - Artists talk back to other artists via their works.

Yeah it just means about or regarding

It is just complex English. This sentence means something like: Artists use their work to create a conversation. This is done through the use of parody, especially of other artist's work and historical art. Academics are extremely poor at using simple language. They think it makes them more intelligent. Vis-a-vis just means "compared to".