Sunday, August 14, 2005

artist-critics

In the comments to one of last week's posts artist Bill Gusky says "the few truly useful art critics remaining, for me, are the artist-critics, in particular Joe Fyfe, Chris Martin, and Stephen Westfall (does Westfall still write?), and, to some degree, Eleanor Heartney".

I included Merlin James in that group and asked "okay, that is four painters who also write art criticism - mostly about other painters. What about non-painters? Artists in other mediums?". An anonymous commenter added "what about female artist-critics? I hate this crowd of guys idea".

Can anybody recommend some other good artist-critics?

Related - Joe Fyfe for artcritical.com, Chris Martin on abstract painting for the Brooklyn Rail, Stephen Westfall for Art in America, Merlin James on Jean Helion.

PS - Is Heartney an artist also?

5 comments:

  1. Maureen Mullarkey writes at Artcritical.com

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  2. Ugh Maureen Mullarkey. Awful overly-conservative angry perspective. Barbara Pollack writes for Time Out and some other places. Her style is more conversational, more entertaining.

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  3. I don't disagree about the conservative angle, may I call you anonymous. She came to mind first. I also like Pollack.

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  4. Alexei Worth used to write for Artforum, had a show last fall somewhere on 57th Street. I like his writing more than his paintings. Mira Schor writes and paints. Personally I am not a fan of her paintings but her writing is pretty interesting, she wrote a book called "Wet" that came out in 97 or 98. Hey and for that matter Jerry Saltz used to be an artist back in the day.

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  5. Also, David Humphrey used to write a great column for the now defunct "Art Issues." Not sure if he is still writing.

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