Michael Brenson,

critic, scholar and teacher

Michael Brenson is a critic, scholar and teacher. He received an MA in Creative Writing and a Ph.D in art history from Johns Hopkins University, and was an art critic for The New York Times from 1982 to 1991. His publications include Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual Artist in America (2001); Sol LeWitt: Concrete Block Structures (2002); Acts of Engagement: Writings on Art, Criticism, and Institutions, 1993–2002 (2004); edited (with Mary Jane Jacob) Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art (1996), edited (with Rhea Anastas) Witness to Her Art: Art and Writings by Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell and Eau de Cologne (2006). He is a Getty scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, a Visiting Senior Critic in the University of Pennsylvania School of Design’s Department of Fine Arts, and a member of the sculpture faculty in Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. He is working on a biography of David Smith.

Education:

• B.A. in English, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
• M.A. in Creative Writing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
• Ph.D. in Art History, Johns Hopkins University, Dissertation: ``The Early Work of Alberto Giacometti: 1925-1935.''

Teaching experience includes:

• Associate Professor, Center for Curatorial Studies, 2000-2001.
• Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, 1999- 2000, 2002 to the present.
• University of Wisconsin Arts Institute’s Interdisciplinary-Artist-in-Residence, fall 2004.
• Visiting Senior Critic, University of Pennsylvania School of Art & Design, 2007 to the present.
• Visiting Senior Critic, Yale University School of Art, Graduate Sculpture Department, New Haven, Conn., Spring 1994.

Contributing editor:

• Art reporter, The New York Times, June 1982 to September 1983.
• Art critic, The New York Times, September 1983 to August 1991.
• Art critic, New York magazine, July 2000 to January 2001.

Awards and honors:

• AICA Distinguished Critic’s Lecture, New School University, November 12, 2007.
• Guggenheim Fellowship 2008.
• Bogliasco Fellow 2010.
• Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation Administrative Board Member, 2003-Present.

Exhibitions:

• Alberto Giacometti: A Loan Exhibition at Acquavella Galleries
• Ursula von Rydingsvard at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
• Antonio López Garcia at Rizzoli
• Sol LeWitt: Concrete Block Structures Catalogue raisonné