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ArtSeptember 1996 "The realest thing I had ever done": Andrew Forge in New Haven by Karen Wilkin On a retrospective of the artist's work at the Yale Center for British Art At a recent dinner, the conversation— fueled, I admit, by liberal amounts of very good red wine—became a kind of Socratic dialogue about the practice of art criticism. Is it more difficult to write about art you admire or art you detest? (Those abused terms “good” and “bad” were employed.) Which is harder to deal with, figurative or abstract art? Art of the past or of the present? Does intention matter? No consensus was reached about the relative problems posed by historical versus contemporary art, since we veered off into an extended argument about the obligation to understand context and “decode,” as they say, narrative. There was, however, general agreement that it’s easier to find the rapier phrase to puncture inadequate or pretentious work than to come up with a verbal equivalent for the wordless experience of being deeply moved by something you believe to be first rate. There was ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 15 September 1996, on page 105 Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/andrewforgenewhaven-wilkin-3514
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by Karen Wilkin On “Watteau, Music, and Theater” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Vermeer & Monet at the Met & MoMA by Karen Wilkin On "Vermeer’s Masterpiece: The Milkmaid" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York & “Monet’s Water Lilies” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. by Marco Grassi On "The Art of Devotion: Panel Painting in Early Renaissance Italy," Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont. On "In Pursuit of Knowledge: 600 Years of Leipzig University," The Grolier Club, New York. by Mario Naves On "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction" at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York.  The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices 
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