Compiled for the first time here, the critic, artist, gallerist, dealer,
translator John Kelsey's selected essays gamesomely convey some of the
most poignant challenges in the art world and in the many social roles
it creates. "When the critic chooses to become a smuggler, a hack, a
cook, or an artist," Kelsey said at a 2007 conference at the
Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, "it's maybe because criticism as such
remains tied to an outmoded social relation." It is precisely this
relation that Kelsey intends to not only critique but also to surpass.
In this way, Kelsey's "Rich Texts" play the double role of explaining
the art world and actively participating in it; they close the distance
between the work of art and how we talk about it.
Originally published in Artforum--where Kelsey is a contributing
editor--Texte zur Kunst, Parkett, and various artists' catalogues,
the essays compiled in Rich Texts have all been written over the last
decade, and therefore embody a timeliness that strikes at the core of
the contemporary art world and the crises that have come to define it.
Institut für Kunstkritik Series