Artists, collectors, curators, and dealers are all needed for the system to function, but the role of critics is up for grabs.
David Carrier
David Carrier’s most recent books are Art Writing Online: The State of the Art World and Philosophical Skepticism as the Subject of Art: Maria Bussmann’s Drawings. His book In Caravaggio’s Shadow: Naples as a Work of Art is forthcoming.
Posted inArt
The Importance of Being Delacroix
The last great artist who was not a modernist, Delacroix synthesized very complex visual and verbal traditions in stunning works that open the way to modernism.
Posted inBooks
Connoisseurship Is Not a Dirty Word
Connoisseurship, it is often said, is elitist, Euro-centric, and logo-centric, to employ the fashionable jargon.
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Who Really Owns the Elgin Marbles?
However we judge Lord Elgin’s original acquisition of the Parthenon sculptures, it’s easy to wonder whether the Turkish rulers legitimately had the right to allow him to dispose of these artworks.
Posted inArt
The Art of a Fired Cartoonist
What if we interpret Rob Rogers’s wild art cartoons as if they were conventional subjects for art writing?
Posted inArt
The Divergence of Art and Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum
Presenting contemporary garments alongside Byzantine and Medieval artworks underlines the visual differences between the two genres of objects.
Posted inBooks
Sweet, Gritty, Impossible Naples
The other great centers of the Italian art world – Florence, Rome, and Venice – have modernized; Naples mostly has not.