Posted on June 21, 2026, 8:21 PM, by jfriedman, under
art history.
Hockney’s own favorite story made the case better than any critic could: a ceramic owl by Picasso, he liked to point out, contains far less visual information than a stuffed specimen, yet it captures something the stuffed bird never will—the experience of a human being looking. Everything he made afterward was an argument for that distinction. The conviction that pictures should register perception rather than mimic mechanical record is what let him move between such different work without ever really changing subjects: an opera set where dragons live in the architecture instead of standing around as props, a Yorkshire hawthorn that only gives up its structure to someone who has looked at it for years, not seconds. Hockney’s recurring joke—that Caravaggio invented Hollywood lighting—was never really a joke. It was the same claim every time: that looking is a discipline, and that painting is still the best instrument we have for doing it.
Posted on April 5, 2024, 5:35 PM, by jfriedman, under
art history.
This article published in Quillette is a cautionary tale about what happens when while looking at a painting one only sees their own reflection. As the historian Christopher Lasch pointed out four decades ago, disproportionate concern with “identity” is directly linked to the difficulties of establishing the boundaries of selfhood. And without the certainty of […]
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Art History,
Christopher Lasch,
Claude Gellée,
Greek mythology,
Instagram video,
museums,
Narcissus and Echo,
National Gallery,
Ovid,
painting,
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Posted on January 17, 2024, 3:53 PM, by jfriedman, under
Art Criticism.
My review of the anodyne show “Tracey Emin: Lovers Grave” at NYC White Cube.
The Joy of Painting—a TV series hosted by American artist Bob Ross, on which he would conjure up Alaskan landscapes in just 27 minutes of airtime—ran for 403 episodes between 1983 and 1994. Eventually syndicated to almost 300 PBS stations nationwide, it attracted over 80 million daily viewers of varying ages and backgrounds. According to […]
Posted on September 26, 2022, 2:51 PM, by jfriedman, under
art history.
A gonzo, and now veteran (established in 1992), art journal Coagula seemed like a perfect venue to throw well-deserved shade on the newly fashionable A.I.-generated art. In this short essay, I contrast the limited capabilities of computer algorithm with the emotional nuance of analogue human-made art. To read the full article, click on the image […]
My tribute to the great Wayne Thiebaud is out in the February issue of The New Criterion—a magazine he had subscribed to for decades. I had the privilege of working with Wayne for the past few years, so the text below contains my insights into this man of impeccable integrity, strong will, and unwavering dedication […]
Our third essay on crypto art (co-authored with David Hawkes). The first one “The Marriage of Art & Money” dealt with the financial nature of the digital art NFTs, while the second “The Afterlife of the Aura” took up the thorny subject of materiality in contemporary art. This article explores the significance of Damien Hirst’s […]
