Why Context Isn't Just Background
Historical and cultural context doesn't frame artworks—it enters into what they fundamentally mean.
How Photography Changed What Art Could Be
Photography didn't kill painting—it revealed what painting was actually for.
How Political Art Fails and When It Succeeds
Why the best political art transforms perception rather than delivering messages
The Paradox of Artistic Originality
Why artistic innovation depends on the very traditions it transforms
Kitsch and Its Discontents: Why We Love What Critics Despise
The aesthetic category everyone dismisses keeps revealing what criticism tries to hide about taste, class, and emotional authenticity.
Why Beautiful Art Can Be Morally Troubling
When technical mastery serves repugnant values, neither dismissal nor celebration captures what thoughtful engagement requires.
Authenticity and the Forgery Problem: What Copies Reveal About Value
Why perfect copies leave us cold and what this reveals about the deep connections between artistic value, historical truth, and human creative intention.
The Institutional Frame: How Museums Transform Objects Into Art
Discover how the invisible architecture of museums and galleries actively constructs the meaning and value we find in art.
The Death of the Author and the Birth of the Reader
Understanding why the artist's intention is just one voice among many in determining what art means
The Sublime: When Art Overwhelms Understanding
How overwhelming encounters with magnitude and power reveal dimensions of consciousness that ordinary aesthetic pleasure cannot touch.
How Artistic Movements Die and Why Their Ideas Survive
Discover why the movements that seem most dated often carry the ideas that matter most for understanding contemporary art.
Representation and Reality: How Art Depicts Without Deceiving
Discover why pictures work through cultural convention rather than natural resemblance—and how recognizing this transforms your visual literacy.
Why Some Art Feels 'Difficult' and What That Reveals About Interpretation
Understanding why art resists you reveals more about perception than the artwork itself—and why that resistance matters.
Why Interpretation Isn't Just Opinion
How evidence, context, and coherence separate genuine insight from dressed-up preference in art criticism.