He had identified the one thing that possesses the most potential for disruption and transgression in the whole cultural hierarchy. The funny thing is that many people assumed that Hickey's defense of beauty was reactionary—or sentimental or nostalgic or some other backward-looking thing. But if they paid any attention to him, they knew that Dave Hickey consistently celebrated the most shocking and controversial works of art.
I only ever have a fairly small amount of looking in my system, I guess you could say, and I wanted, rather zealously and also somewhat self-protectively, I wanted to reserve all my looking-energy for the Friedrich paintings.
6mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
