David Carrier Journalist Profile

Articles

Art and Money

Dec 27, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

Visual art is the the artistic medium most directly associated with money. A successful writer or composer may become financially successful. And a famous actor is usually well paid. But the painting that becomes famous goes, in many cases, from being a low priced community when it is made to a well guarded luxury good, a commodity owned by a grand collector or a museum. This movement is especially dramatic for contemporary artworks.
Museum Skepticism Revisited: the Lessons of Venice

Dec 6, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

Sometimes one’s best ideas are simple. At the end of the twentieth century, I spent the academic year in residence as a Getty Scholar in Los Angeles, writing about the art museum. I read in the vast literature the memoirs of curators and directors, the histories of various institutions, and also the theory-heavy accounts of academics. And I had the privilege of walking every working day through the Getty Museum, and so I got to know the collection.
Two Cheers for Maurizio Cattelan

Nov 29, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

For H.B.Just now I see in the news that a previously little known, rarely seen portrait by Caravaggio has reappeared in Italy. Because I am very interested in him, having written about his art repeatedly and read some of the vast literature about him, I would love to see this work. Maybe, indeed, it’s worth braving the inevitable crowds and traveling to view it. I learn also in the news about Maurizio Cattelan Cattelan’s Comedian (2024), a banal banana taped to the wall with duct tape.
A Charming Cat-alogue of John Craxton’s Kittens

Oct 28, 2024 | hyperallergic.com | David Carrier

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider supporting us as a member. Join Us The other day, I opened my front door, and a cat from up the street was sitting alone on my porch — a strange creature, just looking. Not everyone loves cats. Me, I think them charming because they are essentially wild creatures with alien intelligences that are small enough to live with.
Venetian Art and American Art

Sep 27, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

We philosophers believe that there is something called ‘art’, which has an essence. And so our goal is to offer a general definition, encompassing all art made anywhere anytime. Art historians have a different goal. For the art historian, the aim is to describe diverse visual cultures, treating art as a form of cultural expression. What, then, is Venetian art and American art? That’s a different question. Some art affirms the values of the society. That was the case in the Venetian Republic.
Walter Pater’s Venice

Sep 20, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

I am in my Pittsburgh study looking at an inexpensive print by Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), the French born artist who lived and worked in London. I see a peasant working to clear the fields in the countryside. A wide road runs across the image to the bottom left hand corner. And a storm is about to break out behind the houses. The stability of these buildings contrasts with the movement implied by the descending lines of rain at the upper right hand edge. A lot is happening here.
Bill Beckley: A Perfect Friendship

Sep 13, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

Now and then, but this is rare, one has a perfect friendship, a loving harmonious experience rare enough to deserve a written record. I had such a relationship with Bill Beckley. We met twenty some years ago because he was seeking authors for Allworth Press. He published a really dazzling book, Thomas McEvilley’s The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (2002). And he also generously did my Writing About Visual Art (2003).
The Venetian Birth of Modernism

Sep 6, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

Consider a short list of the defining qualities, the necessary and sufficient conditions of European modernism, in contrast or opposition to old master sacred tradition. Modernism involves secular rather than sacred subjects. Compare Impressionist landscapes with High Renaissance altarpieces. Modernism requires a system in which art is made to be sold in the marketplace rather than commissioned in a top down system of patronage controlled by a privileged elite.
Towards A New History of Venetian Art

Aug 30, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

Venetian painting has long been famous, and so much has been commented on. Early in the nineteenth century, Hegel, who never got to Italy, offered some evocative notes. Later in that century, Walter Pater published a famously suggestive account of the school of Giorgione. In 1970, Sydney J. Freedberg’s massive volume history of sixteenth-century Italian art offers a closely detailed discussion of painting in Venice, contrasting the development of the Florentine tradition.
Failed Conceptual Revolutions: Three Case Studies

Aug 23, 2024 | counterpunch.org | David Carrier

Our culture depends upon regular, reliable innovation. We expect that the technologies associated with everyday life will be quickly updated. And we anticipate that our art and intellectual tools will get significantly modified regularly. But of course, such innovation isn’t always successful. Certainly I am aware of this as a practicing art critic. We generally discuss the relatively few successes, but not usually the many failures.