News:
Finally out, after 6 years of work: a textbook with Oxford Press, co-authored with Erna Fiorentini, called Visual Worlds.
The opening pages of my novel are now online with Place (lierary magazine in Brussels). More on the novel here.
Also in 2020: my summary of the state of art writing around the world, called The Impending Single History of Art: North Atlantic Art History and its Alternatives. To be published by de Gruyter.
Please use the contact form to schedule lectures, studio visits, or seminars. See Lectures page for my travel schedule.
Latest uploads:
The book Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?; the book How to Use Your Eyes; and an essay on the complicity between torture and formal analysis. (There is also a website with reviews of contemporary piano music.)
Live Writing Projects:
I am experimenting with writing live on the internet. These texts update live, and you can contribute to them & be thanked when the book is published. (1) What is Interesting Writing in Art History?, (2) Writing with Images. Thanks everyone for contributing!
An essay on the concept of the sublime in art, rehearsing the history of the postmodern sublime, and calling for a moratorium on its use.
A brief essay on the sometimes overlooked continuum between the most original work and the most literal copy.
An essay on the relation between Photoshop and the history of art, and a proposal for a book to be called The History of Photoshop.
The idea of close reading is fundamental in art history and literary criticism. This essay is about the coherence of the idea in art history and in some archaeology.
Art Criticism (an encyclopedia entry, written for the Grove Dictionary of Art, and interestingly censored by them). It's a survey of major theories of art criticism.
A brief essay on E.H. Gombrich's relation to the discipline of art history, with reasons why he would not have considered himself an art historian.
An essay on the ordinary condition of most artists: being average, statistically normal, moderately successful--and not an outlier like Pollock.
An essay on reasons to mistrust claims that that (Western) artists have used science in their art, or that current art and science are linked.