EXHIBITIONS · CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION
Rosalind E. Krauss
Also known as: Rosalind Krauss, Rosalind Kraus
American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City.
Most acclaimed
Andy Warhol
"By the mid-1970s, Andy Warhol was veering away from his earlier focus on mainstream celebrities and toward more eclectic subjects, such as the cross-dressers in his Ladies and Gentlemen series. In 1976, he made a series of paintings and drawings of the Native American actor and activist Russell Means. Starting with popular publicity shots, Warhol transferred these images to silkscreen and then printed them on canvases. Warhol presents Means with exaggerated, glamorized features; some of the canvases include hand-painted embellishments and decorations that distinguish this series from the mechanical approach of Warhol's earlier celebrity portraits. Through a combination of mass technology and ornamental technique, Warhol transforms a commonplace image into a dignified and majestic portrait that pays tribute to both an individual and his people"--Amazon.com, viewed November 13, 2013.
Television
"The self-possessed protagonist and narrator of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's novel is an acedemic on sabbatical in Berlin. He plans to write a groundbreaking study of Titian, but after a couple of months, all he's completed is "When Musset." He blames his obsession with watching TV for preventing him from writing more, so he decides to stop watching television all together (after the end of the Tour de France, of course). Still unable to write his book, he is haunted by television, from the video surveillance screens in a museum to a moment when it seems everyone in Berlin is tuned in to Baywatch. One of Toussaint's funniest antiheroes, the protagonist of Television turns daily occurrences into comic nightmares about the influence of television on our lives."--BOOK JACKET.
David Smith
1957
Having realized quite early that he had to be an artist, Smith made his way to New York and the Art Students League. There he experimented with variations on the revealing styles of Cubism and Surrealism, and slowly discovered his own technique, particularly the use of industrial methods such as welding to construct his sculptures. The results — though responsive to such varied influences as Picasso and pin-up girls — were imaginative, and often strikingly beautiful. Smith's art has inspired generations of followers, but his position as one of the masters of 20th-century sculpture remains unchallenged.