Articles by Thomas Micchelli

Dialing Back

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 18, 2009

Dialing Back

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 18, 2009

Turning again to the oracular nature of art (see Monday’s post), it is compelling to consider that, in the Western canon, drawing as an autonomous art form first came into …

Labyrinths

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 15, 2009

Labyrinths

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 15, 2009

The other night I was at a dinner where someone suggested that, all things being equal, what ultimately makes the difference in a body of work is the character of …

No Expectations

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 12, 2009

No Expectations

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 12, 2009

In his New York Times article on the opening of the Venice Biennale, Michael Kimmelman laments that the look of the exhibition “suggests a somewhat dull, deflated contemporary art world, professionalized …

Flash Points

Money Changes Everything

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 10, 2009

Flash Points

Money Changes Everything

by Thomas Micchelli | Jun 10, 2009

I remember, back when I was in art school, walking into a lecture hall where someone had scrawled on the chalkboard, “The only true artists are amateurs.” That was the …

Flash Points

Sade 2.0

by Thomas Micchelli | Feb 17, 2009

Flash Points

Sade 2.0

by Thomas Micchelli | Feb 17, 2009

On February 7th I drove to the Kasser Theater at Montclair State University to see a performance of The Investigation, a 1966 documentary drama by Peter Weiss (1916-1982), the expatriate German artist and …