Stick to Your Gunns
When Tim Gunn was writing his first book, the designer Diane von Furstenberg told him to never lose his voice as an educator. Gunn, a fashion consultant and the cohost of the telev
“Crisis” in Criticism: Report #2
Anticipating yet another version of the standard critic’s disclaimer, “We have no power and no one reads us, anyway,” I found the New School’s auditorium overflowing with a
“Crisis” in Criticism: Report #1
The New School auditorium is an antiseptic affair after the historic Great Hall at Cooper Union and the raunchy amphitheater at the School of Visual Arts, but its acoustics are muc
A Crisis of Critique
Lately I’ve thought about the difference between a work of art that is about a particular subject and one that is a critique of that same subject. Many in the a
How We Would Give Talks
“What’s going on here?” is first thought a person might have on first encountering a painting by Dana Schutz. One might do well, of course, to ask that same question when vie
“Some of my best friends are humans”
When you give a provocative title to a “book reading and discussion” like the organizers of this event did, and then carve out a three-hour block for it, your audience might ex
Grrrl Power
In a new publication devoted to modern and contemporary art, my writing the first essay on Riot Grrrls may seem amiss, but considering that a passion in music preceded my interest