Psychodrama: Modern Art as Group Therapy
By: Donald Kuspit
December 2010
Ziggurat Books
Distributed by Trans-Atlantic Publications
ISBN: 9780956103895
540 Pages
$42.50 Paper Original
This collection contains Donald Kuspit's writing at its illuminating best as it reveals the psychological and spiritual motivation that conceivably compelled the artists represented to create some of their most interesting work. His subjects range from the artist's relentless manoeuvring for status to the calculated use of perversion and empowering sexuality to engage the art-going public. His criticism is occasionally devastating but always eloquently convincing. Donald Kuspit's opinions will be disconcerting for many who accept what is considered by art journalists and curators to be significant and worthy of the public's attention. He also examines the art market and its compromising effect upon our system of cultural values. The book is appropriately illustrated with paintings by Marcus Reichert, whose own work adheres to a radical ethos.
With essays on: Karel Appel, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Motherwell, August Sander, Lucian Freud, Lucas Samaras, Robert Graham, George Segal, Helmut Newton, Rebecca Horn, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter, Dieter Roth, Anne-Louis Girodet, Nicholas Poussin, Jasper Johns, Neo Rauch, Sean Scully, Stephen Newton, and many other subjects ranging from sensationalism in art to the spiritual in art.
Donald Kuspit is one of America's most esteemed art critics. He is Distinguished Professor of Art History and Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Winner of the prestigious Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism (1983), given by the College Art Association, Professor Kuspit is a Contributing Editor at Artforum, Sculpture, and Tema Celeste magazines, and the editor of Art Criticism. He has also curated many exhibitions.