Dialectical Conversions: Donald Kuspit’s Art Criticism: 5 (Value: Art: Politics) - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

David Craven was Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of New Mexico.

Brian Winkenweder, Associate Professor of Art History, Linfield College.

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Few critics in Western art history have had the broad-ranging impact over several decades of Donald Kuspit, a philosopher and psychoanalyst who has been a commanding figure on the international stage from the early 1970s onwards. A student of German thinker Theodor Adorno, under whom he earned the first of his three doctorates, Kuspit introduced a new type of philosophical criticism into the art world. He drew on both phenomenology and Critical Theory before increasingly adopting psychoanalytic approaches. Since Kuspit himself has always measured his own place in the history of art criticism by how rigorously he engages with competing approaches, this book is a searching survey of Kuspit's role in triggering several historic shifts within art criticism, beginning with his now legendary 1974 article in Artforum, 'A Phenomenological Approach to Artistic Intention'. Dense and demanding, yet deft and incisive, Kuspit's multi-faceted art criticism has become world renowned.

Dialectical Conversions includes a wide range of responses to Kuspit's work from artists, critics, art historians and philosophers of various national backgrounds. Divided into three parts and prefaced by an introduction assessing Kuspit's achievement, the book features contributions by artists including Rudolf Baranik, Anselm Kiefer and April Gornik, as well as critical commentaries by scholars and critics from around the world, demonstrating the richness of Donald Kuspit's insights into art.