Posted on June 10, 2026, 5:20 PM, by jfriedman, under
art history.
In this response to artist Josh Kline’s essay on the state of American art, I take a closer look at the idea that the art world has recently fallen into crisis. Kline argues that today’s system is no longer able to support artists in meaningful ways. I question that view by looking at the history of modern art and its institutions. From Soviet Constructivism and the WPA to the rise of Abstract Expressionism during the Cold War, art has always depended on political, economic, and institutional support. Rather than seeing current tensions as evidence of a broken system, I argue that they are a longstanding feature of cultural life. The essay challenges common assumptions about artistic independence and asks whether the art world was ever as autonomous as many people imagine.
My contribution to David Carrier’s series “The End of Postmodernism” in the December/January opinions section of the Brooklyn Rail.
Tags:
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clementgreenberg,
culture of narcissism,
Damien Hirst,
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Posted on March 2, 2024, 2:21 PM, by jfriedman, under
art history.
While the Whitney Museum of American Art’s webpage still defines the Whitney Biennial as “the longest-running survey of American art” (emphasis added), this year’s eighty-first installment will expand its reach well beyond the United States. The show includes artists from Chile, Britain, Korea, Indonesia, Canada, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, Lebanon, Singapore, Mongolia, Finland, Sweden, Croatia, India, Mexico, and China. This mad dash for inclusivity is consistent with the theme of the 2024 Venice Biennale, “Foreigners Everywhere,” but, whereas Venice’s has always been an international affair, the Whitney’s has always been national, making it a radical departure.
Quillette just published my article about Ben Sakoguchi’s spectacular smackdown of literalist curators. Sakoguchi was invited to participate in the revived California Biennial, to be held at the Orange County Museum of Art, which was reopening with great fanfare in a brand new $94 million Morphosis-designed building. The curators had selected a his 16-panel polyptych titled Comparative […]
Posted on January 5, 2022, 9:16 PM, by jfriedman, under
Art Criticism.
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 […]
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 […]
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.
