to postmodernist works (such as Andy Warhol’s
Brillo boxes) that lack the inner fire of spirituality
he argues is the essence of art. But despite the polemical edge to much of his writing—more
than 20 books of criticism, philosophy and poetry
—he makes no effort to promote his ideas in the
courses he teaches at SVA. Just the opposite. “To
teach is to learn,” he says. “The students know
more about what’s going on in the current scene
than I do. They keep me up with the latest trends.”
Kuspit teaches two courses. One is
Psychoanalysis and Art Criticism, a seminar
for students in the MFA Art Criticism and Writing
Department. Few people are better qualified to
teach such a course: besides his doctoral
degrees in philosophy and art history, Kuspit
received psychoanalytic training at New York
University. He asks his graduate students to read
works by psychoanalysts that seek to illuminate
the springs of creativity in artists like Marcel
Duchamp and René Magritte. Class discussions
are intense. “They all want to write about art,
” Kuspit says. “These students are as articulate
and engaged as any I’ve ever had.”
His other class, an undergraduate senior
seminar in art theory and criticism, attracts mostly
painters and other fine arts majors, who bring a
different kind of intensity to the class: “They’re
eager to make art, but they don’t know much
about what came before,” he says candidly.
Yet that may be changing. Kuspit, who has been
teaching the senior seminar for two decades,
says he has recently noticed “a renewed interest
in tradition, in craft, in learning from the past. I tell
them, ‘Don’t be too interested in the latest hot thing.
What’s hot today is cold tomorrow.’”
| DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTS | |
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Program begins inaugural year, fall 2005. The Critics Series lectures, including talks by Arthur Danto, Mira Schor and David Carrier. February 2006 faculty book event, featuring Suzanne Anker, Tom Huhn, Thomas McEvilley and Raphael Rubinstein. |