Writings
Essays on art and artists.
"Art is a Permanent Accusation"
On Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib paintings and the question of whether American artists have found a language for protest.
Achieving Artistic Grace
On de Kooning's Woman with Bicycle and Pollock's Galaxy — and the age-old argument about whether grace can be earned through toil or only delivered by fate.
Shards of Babel: Fragmentation & Pictorial Language
A history of painting's competing languages — symbol, material, and illusionistic space — and how they split apart, warred, and recombined across six centuries.