Alexander Alberro

Beauty Knows No Pain

During the past decade, a number of texts by authors such as Arthur Danto, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Dave Hickey, Elaine Scarry, Peter Schjeldahl, and Wendy Steiner have sought to return our attention to the subject of beauty and in particular to the experience of the beautiful in contemporary art. The central questions raised by these authors, the questions they all in one way or another seem to need to address, are: Whatever happened to beauty? Why and how has it been disparaged? Who denigrated it? And why do so many art critics and historians no longer consider the judgment of beauty to be a valid exercise?

The Work of Art as Criticism@@@Two-Way Mirror Power: Selected Writings by Dan Graham on His Art

The internationally renowned artist Dan Graham is widely acknowledged as one of the leading members of the 1960s conceptual art movement. However, his subsequent work in photography, performance, film, video, and the fusion of art and architecture, though well known in Europe and Japan, is less well known in English-speaking countries. In Rock My Religion (MIT Press, 1993), Graham explored mainly the work of other artists. In this collection, he articulates the rationale behind his own art. The broadly accessible essays, which include his most canonical texts, are organized both thematically and chronologically. They chart his career from conceptual art for magazine pages of the 1960s, to work integrating video, television, architecture, film, and performance of the 1970s, to his pavilion sculptures of the 1980s and 1990s. The book also features an essay by Jeff Wall and interviews with Graham that address the art historical references and theoretical principles underlying his work. Published in association with the Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.