David Hockney, Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott, 1968

Hail Hockney: The $90-Million Man

David Hockney is no stranger to the limelight, but lately the Los Angeles-based painter and photographer has had unprecedented exposure and the value of his work has risen exponentially, culminating in a canvas selling for more than $90 million.

Half of Warhol's set of 32 Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, each 20 x 16", The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Warhol at the Whitney

If you weren’t around for the posthumous Andy Warhol retrospective at MoMA in 1989, and you haven’t studied postwar art, your knowledge about the Pop icon likely centers on soup cans and Marilyns. The Warhol retrospective at the Whitney Museum (until March 31, 2019) fleshes out his life and career.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue façade. Photo by Jason Edward Kaufman (c) 2013

A Modest Proposal for The Met: Make the Façade a Canvas for Public Art

From Rockefeller Center to Madison Square Park and the Park Avenue median, public art has become increasingly prominent around New York. Among the memorable projects in recent years were Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates winding through Central Park, Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls edging the lower harbor, and Tatzu Nishi’s Discovering Columbus, a living room constructed around the column-top statue of the explorer at Columbus Circle, a hot ticket earlier this year.

LA MOCA’s Merchant of Bling

Much has been written about the state of LA MOCA, its stumbling exhibition program, and the forced resignation of its chief curator Paul Schimmel. But not enough investigative work has been done to determine how director Jeffrey Deitch’s commercial profile may be affecting his leadership of MOCA.

Jason Edward Kaufman is an art historian and critic with expertise in museums and the international art world.

A complete list of past articles is available here.

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