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    The Washington Post Pulitzers: Phil Kennicott, Criticism
    The Washington Post Pulitzers: Phil Kennicott, Criticism
    The Washington Post Pulitzers: Phil Kennicott, Criticism
    Ebook64 pages52 minutes

    The Washington Post Pulitzers: Phil Kennicott, Criticism

    By Phil Kennicott and The Washington Post

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    About this ebook

    Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

    For critic Philip Kennicott, the line between art and social criticism is a thin one. In a voice both knowledgeable and compassionate, Kennicott joins his readers in contemplating the much deeper meaning underlying aesthetics.

    From his examination of violence and war in his review of a Taryn Simon photographic project, to his analysis of corporate America in an exhibit for architect Kevin Roche, Kennicott not only interprets art, but captures and conveys its meaning and significance in a manner that invites readers in, and encourages us to look closer.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDiversion Books
    Release dateAug 26, 2014
    ISBN9781626813694
    The Washington Post Pulitzers: Phil Kennicott, Criticism

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      Book preview

      The Washington Post Pulitzers - Phil Kennicott

      The Washington Post Pulitzers: Phil Kennicott, Criticism

      The Washington Post Pulitzers

      Philip Kennicott

      Criticism

      Copyright

      Diversion Books

      A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

      443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

      New York, NY 10016

      www.DiversionBooks.com

      Copyright © 2014 by The Washington Post

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

      For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

      First Diversion Books edition July 2014

      ISBN: 978-1-62681-369-4

      Letter of Introduction

      December 31, 2012

      To the Judges,

      For Washington Post critic Phil Kennicott, there’s little distinction between art and social criticism. Whatever the aesthetics of the art, his readers come away thinking about the sweeping forces that underlie it. He not only interprets art for his readers, he makes it relevant, urgent and deep.

      He confronts genocide, abuse and war in a review of a Taryn Simon photographic project, witnessing the art through the lens of a mid-level bureaucrat authorizing the use of trucks for ethnic cleansing, or a military leader signing off on a little collateral damage as the bombs begin to fall. What her art does, he writes, is show how often we look past the humanity in an image when some higher power — political, religious, scientific — tells us it’s necessary.

      He confronts the nature of corporate America in an exhibit on architect Kevin Roche. If the end of corporate America is a dystopian hell of environmental catastrophe, vast economic inequity and social instability, the corporate architects of our age will not be remembered fondly. But if our age yields to a better one, just as the tyrannies and kleptocracies of past centuries sometimes yielded (perhaps temporarily) to more enlightened, democratic societies, then Roche’s work might have the charm of baroque palaces, Egyptian pyramids and Parisian avenues.

      He confronts the strange and dark allure of violence and misfortune in a powerful, post-Newtown essay, Why do we stare? He examines how our age-old, perverse delight in others’ woes is amplified by social media. He forces us to consider the unthinking act of forwarding, say, an image of Saddam Hussein on the gallows: Is it ethical to take and exhibit this kind of image? Kennicott asks.

      In essay after essay, review after review, with a voice that ranges from dryly arch to deeply sympathetic, Kennicott holds us all to account. He sets the highest standards not only for art criticism but for our society. The Washington Post is proud to nominate Philip Kennicott for The Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.

      Sincerely,

      Marcus W. Brauchli

      Executive Editor

      Museum Review: An unemotional analysis of morality

      ‘‘A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII,’ by Taryn Simon

      November 14, 2014

      Taryn Simon’s art doesn’t look like it was made by an individual. Her photographic displays are so orderly and spare that one might think they were assembled by a committee, perhaps human rights activists documenting some horrendous government crime, or lawyers laying out their case for a class-action suit. Row after row of relentlessly similar portraits have the limited expressive power of a high school yearbook, or a Most Wanted poster on a post office wall. Every portrait is carefully numbered, and every number refers to a minimalist caption on a text panel nearby. The aesthetic is cold, methodical and meticulous.

      The tone of Simon’s monumental photographic project, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII, now on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, is so at odds with its subject matter that one at first suspects a joke, a conceptual smirk hidden somewhere in its reams of material. For four years, Simon traveled the world documenting the impact of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the effects of thalidomide on a family in Scotland, polygamy, faith healing and AIDS in Kenya, and 15 other chapters that are almost equally serious and sobering. Every one of her chapters has the basic ingredients of a National Geographic cover story: a view through the lens of anthropology, environmental science or sociology into some essential conflict between ancient and modern values, some lingering historical trauma, some collision of religion and modernity.

      But Simon’s work lies on the antipodal dark side of the planet from National Geographic. Her portraits show people decontextualized, not in their homes or going about their business, but sitting on a stool, against a generic background, and often wearing almost expressionless faces.

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