G. Roger Denson

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G. Roger Denson (born 1956) is an American journalist, cultural and art critic, theoretician, novelist, and curator. He was a regular contributor to The Huffington Post . His writings have also appeared in such international publications as Art in America , Parkett , Artscribe , Flash Art , Cultural Politics , Bijutsu Techo , Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Artbyte, Art Experience, Arts Magazine, Contemporanea, Tema Celeste, M/E/A/N/I/N/G, Trans>Arts, Culture, Media, and Journal of Contemporary Art.

Contents

Denson has written on the criticism of Thomas McEvilley (with republished essays by McEvilley) in Capacity: History, the World, and the Self in Contemporary Art and Criticism, currently issued by Routledge, (originally Gordon & Breach). [1] Denson's monographs and catalogues include Dennis Oppenheim , (Fundacao De Serralves, Portugal); [2] Hunter Reynolds: Memento Mori, Memoriter, (Trinitatiskirche, Cologne); Michael Young: Predella of Difference, (Blum Helman, New York). And in the book by Robert Morris (artist), Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris (October Books, MIT Press), Denson has contributed to the chapter, “Robert Morris Replies to Roger Denson (Or Is That a Mouse in My Paragon?)”. [3]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Denson established a reputation as a nomadic ideologist. [4]

Early work

Before becoming a cultural critic, Denson helped to launch the careers of a number of young artists as well as to exhibit the work of several who were already internationally acclaimed. In the 1970s and 1980s, as a curator of painting, sculpture, photography, performance, dance, film, and video, he worked with such artists as Allan Kaprow, Vito Acconci, [5] Chris Burden, [6] Suzanne Lacy, Joan Jonas, Steve Paxton and Dancers, Trisha Brown and Dancers, Eric Fischl, Shigeko Kubota, [7] Yvonne Rainer, [8] Laurie Anderson, [9] Dara Birnbaum, Gary Hill, [7] Hollis Frampton, Paul Sharits, Kathryn Bigelow, [10] Marina Abramović, Douglas Dunn and Dancers, Lew Thomas, Gretchen Faust, Leon Golub, Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, [11] Wolfgang Staehle, Scott B and Beth B, Polly Apfelbaum, among numerous others. Denson curated primarily at Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York, [12] but later was a guest curator with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; A-Space, Toronto; The New Museum of Contemporary Art; The Alternative Museum; Abington Art Center, Philadelphia; and various New York commercial galleries. All of which contributed to his serving on the Gallery Association of New York's Board of Directors. Perhaps the exhibition for which he is best known as a curator is Poetic Injury: The Surrealist Legacy in Postmodern Photography, held at The Alternative Museum, with a catalogue and essays by Denson and Suzaan Boettger, and a preface by Rosalind Krauss. [13]

Recent work

In 2004, Denson co-wrote and edited the performance script for Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty: Entertainment by Dan Graham and Tony Oursler , performed at Art Basel Miami Beach; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Vienna; and The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2004–05. [14] A film montage of the performance made by Tony Oursler was installed at the Whitney Biennial 2006, Whitney Museum of Art in New York. [15]

From 2005 to 2008, Denson developed and taught MFA courses in art criticism and writing at New York's School of Visual Arts. He claimed on the SVA website that his courses were especially designed to introduce students to the diverse art, thought, and polity reflective of global history and contemporary events. Such exposure to the world at large should precede specialized study of aesthetic, social, and political theories, he holds, so that each individual is equipped with the intellectual and emotional counterweights required to keep from being unduly seduced by attractive, but myopic world views and paradigms. [16]

In 2010, Denson personified nomadic diversity in his novel, Voice of Force (published with Oracle Press) not only in his characters, but by relinquishing the author's godlike perspective and voice and replacing it with narration by multiple voices loudly expressing contrasting points of view. [17]

In 2017, the monograph SPLENDID VOIDS, The Immersive Works of Kurt Hentschläger was published. Denson contributed an essay titled The Splendid Phenomenology of Hentschlägerian Voids. Together with curator and editor Isabelle Meiffert, he's distributing an in-depth elucidation of Hentschläger's phenomenological works. [18]

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References

  1. ↑ Capacity: history, the world, and ... – Thomas McEvilley, G. Roger Denson – Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  2. ↑ LIVRES / BOOKS / LIVROS : Exposition – Dennis OPPENHEIM – Porto, Fundação de Serralves, 1996. TOBEART.com. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  3. ↑ Continuous Project Altered Daily – The MIT Press Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine . Mitpress.mit.edu. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  4. ↑ Capacity: history, the world, and ... – Thomas McEvilley, G. Roger Denson – Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  5. ↑ VITO ACCONCI: WALLFLOWER HALLS – 31 October 1975. Hallwalls (9 September 2011). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  6. ↑ CHRIS BURDEN – 12/5/75. Hallwalls (9 September 2011). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  7. 1 2 INSTALLATION: VIDEO – 5/9/80. Hallwalls (9 September 2011). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  8. ↑ YVONNE RAINER – 21 April 1977. Hallwalls (9 September 2011). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  9. ↑ PERFORMANCE BENEFIT – 11/12/78. Hallwalls (9 September 2011). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  10. ↑ KATHY BIGELOW AND ERICKA BECKMAN – 12 December 1978. Hallwalls. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  11. ↑ FIGURES, FORMS, AND EXPRESSIONS – 20 November 1981. Hallwalls (20 November 1981). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  12. ↑ Consider the Alternatives, Twenty Years of Contemporary Art at HALLWALLS, The Burchfield Center,1995, pg. 19
  13. ↑ Poetic Injury the Surrealist Legacy in Postmodern Photography by Roger Denson [ permanent dead link ]. Washington Square Books. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  14. ↑ Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Archived 2011-07-28 at the Wayback Machine . Tba21.org (6 June 2005). Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  15. ↑ Whitney Biennial 2006 :: Day for Night. Whitney.org. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  16. ↑ "Media.schoolofvisualarts.edu" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-02-19. Retrieved 2010-03-13.
  17. ↑ Voice of Force (9781448661695): G. Roger Denson: Books. Amazon.com. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.
  18. ↑ Meiffert, Isabelle (2017). SPLENDID VOIDS. The immersive works of Kurt Hentschläger. Berlin: Distanz Verlag GmbH. ISBN   978-3-95476-183-8.
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