Maria Bussmann’s elusive drawings acknowledge the impossibility of fixing philosophical terms in imagery, like bugs in amber.
David Carrier
David Carrier is a philosopher who writes art criticism. His Aesthetic Theory, Abstract Art and Lawrence Carroll (Bloomsbury) and with Joachim Pissarro, Aesthetics of the Margins/ The Margins of Aesthetics: Wild Art Explained (Penn State University Press) were published in 2018. He is writing a book about the historic center of Naples, and with Pissarro he conducted a sequence of interviews with museum directors for Brooklyn Rail.
Posted inArt
The Quality of Mercy, From Caravaggio to Conceptual Art
Like art, morality persists despite dramatic cultural transformations.
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When a Square Is Not Just a Square
Like his best works, Sean Scully’s “Black Square” is oddly exhilarating, especially because it is initially grim.
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When Disaster Can’t Be Pictured
To represent the world is to understand it, and to understand it might, hopefully, help cope with a plague.
Posted inBooks
A Close, Dazzling Look at Michelangelo’s Painting
Leo Steinberg’s compelling essays pull you into the interpretative process, asking you to see the drama he unpacks.
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Color Field, Then and Now
I fear that the visual culture in which these works were admired is now one of those distant “you had to be there” moments, which are impossible to reconstruct.
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Sculpting With Light, Drawing With Shadow
It’s hard to identify precedents for Christopher Wilmarth’s sculpture, which uses its banal modern materials purely abstractly.
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Taking Appropriation Too Far
To manipulate the historical record, I would think, is to abandon the search for truth.
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Kehinde Wiley Seizes the Throne
Wiley shows us that a Black man can indeed take the place of Napoleon.
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Jake Berthot’s Nowhere Land
All that I saw were some small and medium-sized paintings, mostly very dark, almost indistinguishable. How could I review this show?
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Do the Old Masters Still Speak to Us?
Now and then, I suspect that an honest art writer might feel as if he or she is losing it.
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When the Exhibition Becomes a Work of Art
Who would have thought that still lifes would create such a strong reaction?