The Mona Lisa Curse
Robert Hughes has long been one of the only art critics I can stomach without throwing the magazine/book/TV out the window (apart from a brief flirtation with Clement Greenberg when I was in college, but I was young!). His landmark book “Shock of the New” is one of the best appraisals of modern art while his “Culture for Complaint” is essential reading if you want to understand the Red/Blue divide in US politics and how the 80′s art world became the battleground for the culture wars that still rage today. He has just completed a new documentary on the deconstruction and destruction of art in our commercially driven age. It’s scathing, it’s depressing, and it’s undeniably true. It’s the best two hours of television on the subject of art that I’ve ever seen. Here is the complete program in 12 parts.
June 17th, 2010 11:32
thanks for the lead. looks fascinating, will watch a bit later
June 17th, 2010 13:52
Just brilliant. Hughes is a hero. Also fascinating to read the responses to the videos, a lot of people trying to dismiss him as being out of touch or somehow elitist. His thesis applies all too well to contemporary attitudes to art in Ireland, the debased media commentary on art that only ever seems interested in the commercial side. Thanks for posting.
June 17th, 2010 14:45
yes Bremb asbsolutly Robert Hughs (with David Sylvester) is one the most fascinating and responsable art critics. But the book that really casts an entire new light on art is in my opinion Secret Knowledge by David Hockney. At the end of the book there is a section with his correspondence that is one of the most pleasant thing I ever read about art in the last 10 years (the other ones must be the Sylvester’s interviews with Francis Bacon).