Richard Shiff: Writing after Art
Essays on Modern and Contemporary Artists
Publisher: David Zwirner Books
Publication Date: 2023
By Richard Shiff
An expansive anthology of the critic and art historian Richard Shiff’s most influential writings, which have shaped today's understanding of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art
“To see a work, to gather it in as sensation, is less than knowing it, less than classifying it, less than theorizing it….But seeing art, or sensing it by some other means, also becomes more than knowing it. To prolong sensory involvement with a work of art preserves its greatest potential.”
In his engaging and penetrating observations on modern and contemporary visual art, Shiff has written about an impressive range of creative forces, including Willem de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Bridget Riley, and Peter Saul. A leading scholar and powerful voice, Shiff offers insight into prominent artistic practices that span generations and approaches, as seen in this considered selection of essays on twenty-seven artists.
These writings first appeared in exhibition catalogues for institutions including the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Tate Modern. Shiff supplements his unquestionable fluency in art history with perspectives cultivated from his readings in philosophy, phenomenology, literary theory, and psychoanalysis, among other fields. Shiff’s writing—conceptually rich, meditative, and enjoyable to read—is attuned to the nuances of artistic style and technique, drawing out art’s social implications not merely from broad histories but also directly from artists’ mark making and technical gestures. Actively engaged as a viewer and a writer, Shiff has transformed the act of looking at art into contemplative and captivating writing.
Richard Shiff: Writing after Art includes essays on Georg Baselitz, Mark Bradford, Georges Braque, Jim Campbell, Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Dan Flavin, Suzan Frecon, Lucian Freud, Ellen Gallagher, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Julie Mehretu, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Bridget Riley, Peter Saul, Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, Jack Whitten, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Read an excerpt from the book on Suzan Frecon. Listen to a podcast between author Richard Shiff and "Reading the Art World" host Megan Fox Kelly.
Details
Publisher: David Zwirner Books
Artist: Marlene Dumas, Dan Flavin, Suzan Frecon, Donald Judd, Bridget Riley, Richard Serra
Contributors: Richard Shiff
Publication Date: 2023
ISBN: 9781644230480
Retail: $45 | £40
Status: Available
Designer: Mark Thomson
Printer: VeronaLibri, Verona
Binding: Softcover
Dimensions: 6.25 × 9.25 in | 15.6 × 23.4 cm
Pages: 696
Reproductions: 64 illustrations
Artist and Contributors
Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas (b. 1953) is regarded as one of the most influential painters working today. Her paintings and drawings, often devoted to depictions of the human form, are typically culled from the artist’s vast archive of images, including art historical materials, mass media sources, and personal snapshots of friends and family. Gestural, fluid, and frequently spectral, Dumas’s works reframe and re-contextualize her subjects, exploring the boundaries between public and private selves.
Dan Flavin
From 1963, when he conceived the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi)—a single gold fluorescent lamp installed diagonally on a wall—until his death in 1996, Dan Flavin (b. produced a singularly consistent and prodigious body of work that utilized commercially available fluorescent lamps to create installations (or "situations," as he preferred to call them) of light and color. Through these light constructions, Flavin was able to at once establish and redefine space.
Suzan Frecon
Made over long stretches of time, Suzan Frecon’s (b. 1941) abstract oil paintings and works on paper invite the viewer’s sustained attention. In Frecon’s work, composition serves as a foundational structure, holding color, material, and light. Frecon mixes pigments and oils to differing effects, and the visual experience of her work is heightened by her almost tactile use of color and contrasting matte and shiny surfaces.
Donald Judd
With the intention of creating straightforward work that could assume a direct material and physical “presence” without recourse to grand philosophical statements, Donald Judd (1928–1994) eschewed the classical ideals of representational sculpture to create a rigorous visual vocabulary that sought clear and definite objects as its primary mode of articulation.
Bridget Riley
Since 1961, Bridget Riley (b. 1931) has focused exclusively on seemingly simple geometric forms, such as lines, circles, curves, and squares, arrayed across a surface—whether a canvas, a wall, or paper—according to an internal logic. The resulting compositions actively engage the viewer, at times triggering sensations of vibration and movement.
Richard Serra
Richard Serra (1938–2024) was born in San Francisco and lived and worked in New York, the North Fork of Long Island, and Nova Scotia. His first significant solo exhibition was held at the Leo Castelli Warehouse, New York, in 1969, and his work has since been featured at prominent institutions worldwide.
Richard Shiff
A scholar and critical theorist, Richard Shiff is the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at The University of Texas at Austin. His interests range broadly across the field of modern and contemporary art. His publications include Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné (coauthored, 2004), Doubt (2008), Between Sense and de Kooning (2011), Ellsworth Kelly: New York Drawings 1954–1962 (2014), Joel Shapiro: Sculpture and Works on Paper 1969–2019 (2020), and Sensuous Thoughts: Essays on the Work of Donald Judd (2020). He is currently completing a comprehensive study of the art of Jack Whitten.
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