Acts of Engagement Writings on Art, Criticism, and Institutions, 1993–2002

by Brenson, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780742529823
• ISBN10: 0742529827
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-08-13
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Acts of Engagement brings together writings spanning the extraordinarily eventful ten-year after the author left The New York Times, where he had been an art critic from 1982 to 1991. The writings fall into three broad areas: art, art criticism, and arts and cultural institutions. In each area, Brenson finds it imperative to consider issues such as responsibility, creativity, process, and voice - issues that have taken on increasing urgency as corporate culture has overcome almost every aspect of American life. If we are to understand and come to terms with the violent shift from multiculturalism to privatization and the difficult if not precarious situation American art and culture are now in, we must engage the key words that define the book's four sections: language, identity, audience, and power.

Author Biography

Michael Brenson is an art critic, an art historian, and a curator. He is currently the Avery Fellow in the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. He lives in New York

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(20)
Part I. Language
1 Fighting Words	21	(8)
2 Experience, Complicity and Quality	29	(10)
3 Conversation	39	(8)
4 Juan Munoz: Sound, Sight, Statuary	47	(18)
5 Art Criticism and the Aesthetic Response	65	(10)
Part II. Identity
6 Where Do We Go from Here? The Place of the Artist and the NEA	75	(8)
7 Resisting the Dangerous Journey: The Crisis of Journalistic Criticism	83	(16)
8 Art Museums and "The Public"	99	(18)
9 The Curator's Moment	117	(16)
10 The Artist as Person	133	(10)
Part III. Audience
11 Healing in Time	143	(16)
12 Audience, Artist, Institution, Community	159	(8)
13 Maya Lin's Time	167	(24)
14 Sometimes Out of Sight, Never Out of Mind: The Story of the Hand in Modernist Sculpture	191	(24)
15 Giacometti's Dog	215	(24)
Part IV. Power
16 Power Corrupts: For Daumier, Humanity Was in the Streets	239	(6)
17 Magdalena Abakanowicz's War Gaines: Monumental Horizontality	245	(12)
18 The Media and Museums	257	(6)
19 Convenience and Process: Private versus Public Arts Funding	263	(14)
20 The Guggenheim, Corporate Populism, and the Future of the Corporate Museum	277	(22)
About the Author	299	(2)
Credits	301