Dave Hickey is retiring, sort of... read the interview because it is pretty much the best art wordsmithing all year. Perhaps this is the final push I need to finish a little essay on art writing and writers I've had in the works?

Why is Hickey so important? He is one of the few arts writers (besides Rem Koolhaas and a handful of others) who looks for the unspoken tension around whatever subject he takes up, then exposes it as a fraud. What is special is the way he then asks us as readers to evaluate that fraud on its merits (discredited or not)... testing the readers in a generous way. In other words he tests his subject and audience rather than simply act as a ceremonial standard bearer at some sort of metaphorical coronation. It isn't debased forms like journalism or art cronyism... it is about the process of sharpening one's thinking, which is criticism of the highest order.

Hickey also makes his detractors crazy... irritation is a rare gift and one of the most powerful any writer can hope to wield.

An interesting interview indeed but http://galleristny.com/2012/10/dave-hickey-retiring-sort-of-interview/?show=all is a working link...

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