The Art of Looking (Basic Books, 2018) by art critic Lance Esplund—a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, among other prestigious publications—is yet another of countless attempts to reconcile the public to the bizarre inventions of the avant-garde.1 A more fitting title would be “The Art of Critical Spinning.” Subtitled How to Read Modern […]
Balthus, contemporary art, Damien Hirst, elements of art, Giacometti, Gislebertus, Jackson Pollock, Lance Esplund, language of art, Malevich, Marcel Duchamp, modern art, Piero Manzoni, Piet Mondrian, readymadesFor today’s art establishment (including once-conservative institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library), contemporary art must be radically “new”—the more unprecedented or deskilled in form and transgressive or inscrutable in content the better.1 An intrepid group of dedicated contemporary artists begs to differ, however. They are the largely neglected painters […]
AICA, Anthony Baus, Carroll Dunham, Colleen Barry, David Salle, Grand Central Atelier, International Association of Art Critics, Jacob Collins, Jewish Museum, Justin Wood, Keith Haring, Metropolitan Museum, Morgan Library, Norman Kleeblatt, Phong Bui, Rachel Li, Robert Simon Fine Art, Suzaan Boettger, The Brooklyn Rail, Will St. John, Wolfgang LaibGoogle “Ayn Rand’s theory of art,” and the second item you will find is an article with that title in the online magazine Hyperallergic. Published in September 2012, the article—which prominently cites the book I co-authored on Rand’s theory—has been known to me for some time. But it is such a scurrilous hatchet job that […]
AICA-USA, art and politics, Ayn Rand's theory of art, Hyperallergic, Jillian Steinhauer, What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand