writings about art, it is artists who are interpreted rather than the artworks that they have made. In critical discourse it should be the art objects that are interpreted, not the persons who made them. We want to be reading works of art and not be engaged in mind-reading. If we focus on the artist rather than the work or ourselves, we are missing opportunities to better understand the work of art and our reactions to it. All art is in part about the world in which it emerged Donald Kuspit, contemporary art critic and aesthetician, reinforces this principle when discussing his decision to include psychoanalysis in his interpretation of works of art: “I began to feel that the artist is not exempt from life. There is no way out from seeing art as a reflection or meditation or a comment on life. I became interested in the process, including the artists life. I became interested in how art reflected life issues, or existential issues with which we are all involved.” All art can be shown and seen to emerge from the context of the time and the space in which it was made. Conversely, we cannot understand a work of art without imaginatively repositioning it in the context from which it emerged. In the words of Michael Foucault, “a text is made up of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation.” Selected publications Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary (1999) McGraw-Hill Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images (1999) McGraw-Hill Interpreting Art : Reflecting, Wondering, and Responding (2002) McGraw-Hill Why Is That Art?: Aesthetics and Criticism of Contemporary Art (2007) Oxford University Press Making Art: Form and Meaning (2011) McGraw-Hill Modernism and Postmodernism: An Overview with Art Examples (1997) in Hutchens and Sums, eds., Art Education: Content and Practice in a Postmodern Era Weight of Photography (2010) External links Official homepage References Ohio State University faculty 1945 births Living people