Archive for the ‘Art Criticism’ Category

Tracey Emin’s new paintings

My review of the anodyne show “Tracey Emin: Lovers Grave” at NYC White Cube.

William Blake at the Getty

My last article published in 2023 was about the Getty exhibition of William Blake, the unrelenting radical who once said that “Where any view of Money exists Art cannot be carried on.” One wonders what the famously recalcitrant artist, poet, and religious visionary would have made of his work being presented by an institution whose […]

In memory of Dave Hickey

I wrote this piece following Dave’s passing November 12, 2021. It was published in the January 2022 issue of The New Criterion magazine. Click on the image to read the full text. I met Dave in 2012, and three years later we embarked on a project based on his Facebook writings. The result was two […]

Culture Wars 2.0

My review of the first book about the American art and culture critic Dave Hickey is out in Atheneum Review. Click on the image below to read the full text. Oppenheimer is the first writer to dedicate an entire book to Dave Hickey, who is now in his early eighties. Although Hickey made occasional public […]

Icons of happiness

An upcoming Christie’s sale of a stunning Vincent Van Gogh drawing led me to contemplate Dave Hickey’s two decades-old predictions about the danger of shifting our collective gaze from the “beautiful object” to the “rhetoric of virtue.” All, because of a silly headline on CNN.style.com. Click on the image below to read the full article.

Annie Lapin: The Archeology of Meaning

Miles McEnery Gallery’s latest publication contains an essay I wrote about the Los Angeles based painter Annie Lapin. In the essay, I place Lapin’s latest body of work “The Art of Heads and Hands” in the context of Henri Focillon’s theories about the life of forms in art. Hard copy of the catalogue is available […]