Donald Kuspit (born March 26, 1935) is an American art critic and poet, known for his practice of psychoanalytic art criticism. He has published on the subjects of

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...

aesthetics,

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

, and

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called ins ...

Education

Kuspit graduated from Columbia College in 1955, and earned a M.A. from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in 1958. He received his PhD in philosophy from the

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...

in 1960. Kuspit next taught at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State becam ...

and became increasingly interested in art history. He earned a M.A. there in 1964. Kuspit is a

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

Scholar and has taught philosophy and American studies at Saarland University and

University of Windsor , mottoeng = Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge , established = , academic_affiliations = CARL, COU, Universities Canada , former_names = Assumption College (1857-1956)Assumption University of Windsor (1956-1963) , type = Public universi ...

. He earned a PhD in art history from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1971.

Academic career

Teaching positions

Kuspit is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History and Philosophy at the

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

and

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

. He was the A. D. White Professor-at-Large at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

(1991–1997). In 1983, he received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Davidson College, in 1996 from the San Francisco Art Institute, and in 2007 from the New York Academy of Art. In 1998 he received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2005 he was the Robertson Fellow at the University of Glasgow. In 2008 he received the Tenth Annual Award for Excellence in the Arts from the

Newington-Cropsey Foundation The Newington-Cropsey Foundation (NCF) is a nonprofit private organization based in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. The foundation's aim is to maintain and preserve the works of Jasper Cropsey and the art movement he was a part of, the Hudson River ...

Awards and grants

He received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism in 1983 (given by the College Art Association). In 1997, the National Schools of Art and Design presented him with a citation for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts. In 2014 he was the first recipient of the Gabarron Foundation Award for Cultural Thought. He has received fellowships and grants from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

Fulbright Program The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

, and Asian Cultural Council.

Art criticism

* The New Subjectivism: Art in the 1980s (1986) * The Inner Voice Visualized: Alfred DeCredico's Abstractions (1991) * The Cult of the Avant-Garde Artist (1992) * The Dialectic of Decadence (1993) * The Photography of

Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch (June 22, 1897 – September 27, 1966) was a German photographer associated with the New Objectivity. Biography Renger-Patzsch was born in Würzburg and began making photographs by age twelve. After military service in the F ...

(1993) * Signs of Psyche in Modern and Postmodern Art (1994) * Primordial Presences: The Sculpture of Karel Appel (1994) * Szczesny (1995) * Health and Happiness in Twentieth Century Avant-Garde Art (1996) * Idiosyncratic Identities: Artists at the End of the Avant-Garde (1996) *

Chihuly Dale Chihuly () (born September 20, 1941) is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is best known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture". Early life Dale Patrick Chihuly was born on September 20, ...

(1997) * Jamali (artist) (1997) * Joseph Raffael (1998) *

Daniel Brush Daniel Brush (January 22, 1947 – November 26, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor and jeweler. Biography Daniel Brush was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh in 1965, from which he gradu ...

(1998) * Hans Hartung (1998) * The Rebirth of Painting in the Late 20th Century (2000) * Psychostrategies of Avant Garde Art (2000) * Redeeming Art: Critical Reveries (2000) * Don Eddy (2002) *

Hunt Slonem Hunt Slonem (born Hunt Slonim, July 18, 1951) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of butterflies, bunnies, and his tropical birds, often based on a personal aviary in which he ha ...

(2002) * Hans Breder (2002) * Steven Tobin (2003) *

April Gornik : April Gornik (born 1953, Cleveland, Ohio) is an American artist who paints American landscapes. Her realist yet dreamlike paintings and drawings embody oppositions and speak to America's historically conflicted relationship with nature. While ...

(2004) * The End of Art (2004) * F. Scott Hess (2006) * New Old Masters (2007) *

William Conger William Conger (born 1937) is a Chicago-based, American painter and educator, known for a dynamic, subjective style of abstraction descended from Kandinsky, which consciously employs illogical, illusionistic space and light and ambiguous forms t ...

(2008)Kuspit, Donald. “Always Abstractly True to Himself: William Conger’s Paintings,” ''William Conger: Paintings 1958–2008'', Chicago: City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, 2009, p.6–23. *

Mia Brownell Mia Brownell (born 1971) is an American painter whose work has been described by the ''Boston Globe'' art critic Cate McQuaid as "a 21st-century take on the 17th-century genre, pulled off with thrilling technique -- a postmodern fruit cocktail that ...

(2010) * Leigh Rivers Aerial Perspectives (2012) * Szczesny:

Neue Wilde The term Junge Wilde ( German for "young wild ones") was originally applied to trends within the art world, and was only later used with reference to politics. At present, the term is used by German-language journalists to describe any group within ...

n works from the 80s (2012) * Yvelyne Wood (2012) * Michael Zansky with Bradley Rubenstein (2014) *"Two Crowns of the Egg" with Michael Somoroff and Giannina Braschi (2014) *

Marcus Reichert Marcus Reichert (19 June 1948 - 19 January 2022) was an American painter, poet, author, photographer, and film writer/director. He was given his first exhibition of paintings at the age of twenty-one at the Gotham Book Mart and Art Gallery, New ...

(2015) Donald Kuspit, "Mirages, Transformations, Miracles: Marcus Reichert's Paintings," ''Marcus Reichert, Tableaux: Paintings 2002-2012, Ziggurat Books International, London, 2015, p.xvii-xx.''

Poetry

* Self-Refraction (1983) * Apocalypse with Jewels in the Distance (2000) * On the Gathering Emptiness (2004) * Disillusion (2018)

Film appearance

* Ciria, (Pronounced Thiria) (2013), directed by Artur Balder

References

External links

* Donald Kuspi
''The Matrix of Sensations''A short biography of Kuspit at ''Blackbird''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuspit, Donald 1935 births Kuspit Living people Frank Jewett Mather Award winners University of Michigan alumni Cornell University people 20th-century American Jews Columbia College (New York) alumni Yale University alumni Pennsylvania State University alumni Pennsylvania State University faculty 21st-century American Jews