Writing Workshop
What is the Art Writing Workshop?
The Art Writing Workshop—a partnership between the Arts Writers Grant Program and the International Art Critics Association/USA Section (AICA/USA) )—gives practicing writers the opportunity to strengthen their work through one-on-one email and phone consultations with leading art critics. Focusing on the craft of writing, the workshop will use participants' writing samples as a springboard for an in-depth consideration of such issues as voice, prose style, organizational structure, and argumentation. Ten applicants will be chosen to participate.
Selections will be announced in December 2012; workshops will be conducted from January–June 2013.
Selections will be announced in December 2012; workshops will be conducted from January–June 2013.
Who is eligible for the Art Writing Workshop?
The possibility of participating in the Art Writing Workshop is being made available to all eligible applicants to the arts writers grant program who are not selected to advance to the final panel review phase of the grant selection process.
Who makes a good candidate for the Art Writing Workshop?
All eligible applicants to the Arts Writers Grant Program who wish to hone their skills and develop compelling prose that can describe and question, render complex ideas clearly, and situate art works within their broader contexts are appropriate candidates for the Art Writing Workshop.
How will Art Writing Workshop participants be selected?
Applicants can indicate their interest in being considered for the Art Writing Workshop by checking the relevant box on the online application form and stating their goals for the workshop experience. (By checking this box, applicants agree to allow their applications and writing samples to be reviewed by the AICA senior critics who are participating in the Art Writing Workshop.)
Workshop participants will be selected by the critics with whom they will be working, drawing on recommendations made by the grant program's director, the workshop director and application evaluators, who will identify those interested applicants most likely to benefit from participation in the workshop.
Workshop participants will be selected by the critics with whom they will be working, drawing on recommendations made by the grant program's director, the workshop director and application evaluators, who will identify those interested applicants most likely to benefit from participation in the workshop.
Does applying for the workshop affect a writer’s chance of receiving a grant?
Expressing an interest in the Art Writing Workshop in no way reduces—or enhances—an applicant’s chances of being chosen to advance to the final panel review phase of the selection process, or of receiving a grant.
Who are the workshop leaders for 2011?
Stephanie Barron
Stephanie Barron is senior curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has been responsible for more than fifty exhibitions and publications, including Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Harry N. Abrams, 1991), Exiles + Émigrés: The Flight of European Artists from Hitler (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1997), and Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000 (University of California Press, 2000). She won the College Art Association’s Alfred Barr Award, the Wittenborn Award and three AICA curatorial awards. She serves on the IRS Art Advisory Panel and chairs NEA’s Domestic Indemnity Panel.
Eleanor Heartney
is a contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress. She received the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism in 1992 and was honored by the French government as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2008. She is a coauthor of After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art (Prestel, 2007). Other books include Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art (Midmarch Arts Press, 2004) and Defending Complexity: Art, Politics and the New World Order (Hard Press Editions, 2006). Heartney formerly served as president of AICA-USA, the US section of the International Art Critics Association.
Christopher Knight
Christopher Knight is art critic for the Los Angeles Times. A three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism (1991, 2001, and 2007), Knight received the 1997 Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism from the College Art Association, the first journalist to win the award in more than twenty-five years. On five occasions he received the former Chemical Bank Award for Distinguished Newspaper Art Criticism (1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, and 1991). He received a 1984 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was a fellow at the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) in 1974–1975.
Kim Levin
Kim Levin is an independent art critic and curator. She was a regular contributor to the Village Voice for several years and has curated museum shows in Europe and Asia, including Borealis 8, the Nordic Biennial. She was international president of AICA, the International Art Critics Association, from 1996 to 2002, and is now president honoraire. Currently, she is an Annenberg-Getty fellow in arts journalism in the 2011 anniversary program.
Nancy Princenthal
Nancy Princenthal is a former senior editor of Art in America, for which she continues to write regularly, as well as for Art News, Artforum, Parkett, the Village Voice, and the New York Times. Princenthal recently published a monograph onHannah Wilke (Prestel, 2010); her essays appear in books and exhibition catalogues on the work of Doris Salcedo, Robert Mangold, Alfredo Jaar, Rona Pondick, and Petah Coyne. She has taught at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Princeton, Yale, Rhode Island School of Design, and elsewhere, and is currently on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts.
Walter Robinson
Walter Robinson is an artist, art critic, and magazine editor. He exhibited with Metro Pictures in the early 1980s, served as a contributing editor of Art in America, and has been editor of Artnet since its launch in 1996.
Raphael Rubinstein
Raphael Rubinstein is a poet and art critic whose books include Polychrome Profusion: Selected Art Criticism 1990-2002 (Hard Press Editions, 2004). He edited the anthology Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice (Hard Press Editions, 2006). From 1997 to 2007 he was a senior editor at Art in America, where he continues as a contributing editor. He is currently professor of critical studies at the University of Houston and also teaches art criticism and writing in the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2002, the French government honored him as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Alexander Scrimgeour
Alexander Scrimgeour is a senior editor at Artforum, where, in addition to commissioning and editing for the magazine, he has written about such artists as Erik van Lieshout, Duncan Campbell, Peter Nadin, and Johan Grimonprez. Before joining the staff of Artforum in 2006, he studied classics and English at Worcester College, Oxford, and worked on the Readings section of Harper's Magazine and at the London Review of Books.
Susan Snodgrass
Susan Snodgrass is a Chicago-based critic, editor, and educator. She is a corresponding editor for Art in America andon the editorial board of the online forum Artmargins. Her criticism has also appeared in Art Papers, C Magazine, Dialogue, New Art Examiner, Sculpture, and World Art, and she has produced and edited a number of books and catalogues. Snodgrass has taught art history and criticism at DePaul University, Columbia College Chicago, and SAIC, where she is currently a graduate advisor in sculpture and an instructor in the New Arts Journalism program.
Robert Storr
Robert Storr is dean of Yale University’s School of Art. As a curator at the Museum of Modern Art from 1990 to 2002, he organized exhibitions on Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, Max Beckmann, Tony Smith, and Robert Ryman, before being named professor of modern art at the Institute of Fine Arts. He is a contributing editor at Art in America and writes frequently for Artforum, Parkett, Art Press, and frieze. His books include the forthcoming Intimate Geometries: The Work and Life of Louise Bourgeois. Among his numerous honors is Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was commissioner of the 2007 Venice Biennale.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Amei Wallach
Amei Wallach is an art critic and filmmaker. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Art in America, ArtNews,the Nation, Elle, Vanity Fair,and the Smithsonian. She was for many years on-air arts essayist for the PBS NewsHour and chief art critic for Newsday. She has written or contributed to a dozen books, taught arts journalism at Syracuse University, and organizes panels internationally. With the late Marion Cajori, she directed the acclaimed film Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine, and is currently in post-production for a documentary on the Soviet-born artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.
Stephanie Barron is senior curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has been responsible for more than fifty exhibitions and publications, including Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Harry N. Abrams, 1991), Exiles + Émigrés: The Flight of European Artists from Hitler (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1997), and Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000 (University of California Press, 2000). She won the College Art Association’s Alfred Barr Award, the Wittenborn Award and three AICA curatorial awards. She serves on the IRS Art Advisory Panel and chairs NEA’s Domestic Indemnity Panel.
Eleanor Heartney
is a contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress. She received the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism in 1992 and was honored by the French government as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2008. She is a coauthor of After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art (Prestel, 2007). Other books include Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art (Midmarch Arts Press, 2004) and Defending Complexity: Art, Politics and the New World Order (Hard Press Editions, 2006). Heartney formerly served as president of AICA-USA, the US section of the International Art Critics Association.
Christopher Knight
Christopher Knight is art critic for the Los Angeles Times. A three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism (1991, 2001, and 2007), Knight received the 1997 Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism from the College Art Association, the first journalist to win the award in more than twenty-five years. On five occasions he received the former Chemical Bank Award for Distinguished Newspaper Art Criticism (1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, and 1991). He received a 1984 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was a fellow at the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) in 1974–1975.
Kim Levin
Kim Levin is an independent art critic and curator. She was a regular contributor to the Village Voice for several years and has curated museum shows in Europe and Asia, including Borealis 8, the Nordic Biennial. She was international president of AICA, the International Art Critics Association, from 1996 to 2002, and is now president honoraire. Currently, she is an Annenberg-Getty fellow in arts journalism in the 2011 anniversary program.
Nancy Princenthal
Nancy Princenthal is a former senior editor of Art in America, for which she continues to write regularly, as well as for Art News, Artforum, Parkett, the Village Voice, and the New York Times. Princenthal recently published a monograph onHannah Wilke (Prestel, 2010); her essays appear in books and exhibition catalogues on the work of Doris Salcedo, Robert Mangold, Alfredo Jaar, Rona Pondick, and Petah Coyne. She has taught at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Princeton, Yale, Rhode Island School of Design, and elsewhere, and is currently on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts.
Walter Robinson
Walter Robinson is an artist, art critic, and magazine editor. He exhibited with Metro Pictures in the early 1980s, served as a contributing editor of Art in America, and has been editor of Artnet since its launch in 1996.
Raphael Rubinstein
Raphael Rubinstein is a poet and art critic whose books include Polychrome Profusion: Selected Art Criticism 1990-2002 (Hard Press Editions, 2004). He edited the anthology Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice (Hard Press Editions, 2006). From 1997 to 2007 he was a senior editor at Art in America, where he continues as a contributing editor. He is currently professor of critical studies at the University of Houston and also teaches art criticism and writing in the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2002, the French government honored him as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Alexander Scrimgeour
Alexander Scrimgeour is a senior editor at Artforum, where, in addition to commissioning and editing for the magazine, he has written about such artists as Erik van Lieshout, Duncan Campbell, Peter Nadin, and Johan Grimonprez. Before joining the staff of Artforum in 2006, he studied classics and English at Worcester College, Oxford, and worked on the Readings section of Harper's Magazine and at the London Review of Books.
Susan Snodgrass
Susan Snodgrass is a Chicago-based critic, editor, and educator. She is a corresponding editor for Art in America andon the editorial board of the online forum Artmargins. Her criticism has also appeared in Art Papers, C Magazine, Dialogue, New Art Examiner, Sculpture, and World Art, and she has produced and edited a number of books and catalogues. Snodgrass has taught art history and criticism at DePaul University, Columbia College Chicago, and SAIC, where she is currently a graduate advisor in sculpture and an instructor in the New Arts Journalism program.
Robert Storr
Robert Storr is dean of Yale University’s School of Art. As a curator at the Museum of Modern Art from 1990 to 2002, he organized exhibitions on Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, Max Beckmann, Tony Smith, and Robert Ryman, before being named professor of modern art at the Institute of Fine Arts. He is a contributing editor at Art in America and writes frequently for Artforum, Parkett, Art Press, and frieze. His books include the forthcoming Intimate Geometries: The Work and Life of Louise Bourgeois. Among his numerous honors is Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was commissioner of the 2007 Venice Biennale.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Amei Wallach
Amei Wallach is an art critic and filmmaker. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Art in America, ArtNews,the Nation, Elle, Vanity Fair,and the Smithsonian. She was for many years on-air arts essayist for the PBS NewsHour and chief art critic for Newsday. She has written or contributed to a dozen books, taught arts journalism at Syracuse University, and organizes panels internationally. With the late Marion Cajori, she directed the acclaimed film Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine, and is currently in post-production for a documentary on the Soviet-born artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.