Coining the term “pop art” is frequently cited as Lawrence Alloway’s singular achievement, despite his being a renowned critic and curator in London and New York. He improvised a critical vocabulary of terms, including ‘“network,” “art world,” “junk,” and “system.” With this vocabulary, he strove to foreground the relevance of art and artists to culture. Using archival material and analysis of his writing, A Critical Language: Lawrence Alloway’s Words to the Art World will be devoted to the scope of Alloway’s practice as a critic and a curator via his theoretical engagement with twentieth-century art through his terms.
Courtney J. Martin is an art historian of the modern and contemporary fields. Her writing and teaching is concentrated in three areas: twentieth century British art, sculpture studies and the history of art criticism. In 2012, she curated a focus display at Tate Britain, Drop, Roll, Slide, Drip…Frank Bowling’s Poured Paintings 1973-1978. In 2014, she co-curated the group show, Minimal Baroque: Post-Minimalism and Contemporary Art, at Rønnebæksholm in Denmark. Since 2008, she has co-led a research project on the Anglo-American art critic and curator Lawrence Alloway at the Getty Research Institute and is co-editor of Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator (Getty Publications, 2015). In 2015 she will curate an exhibition of the American painter, Robert Ryman at the Dia Art Foundation. She is assistant professor in the department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University.