Last week Dave Hickey was back in Los Angeles, for the launch of a book of essays entitled Pirates and Farmers: Essays on Taste. While here, he managed to provoke a twitterstorm at a MOCA book event with his comments on identity politics and its impact on art and the academy.
Dave Hickey is an art and culture critic and teacher, with a bracing directness and acerbic wit. He has been widely admired – even winning a Macarthur “genius” grant – and equally damned, especially by those who consider him out of touch with today’s art, society and economy.
Last week he was back in Los Angeles, for the launch of a book of essays entitled Pirates and Farmers: Essays on Taste. While here, he managed to provoke a twitterstorm at a MOCA book event with his comments on identity politics and its impact on art and the academy.
Maura Lucking is a writer about art and design and DnA DJ who recently helped coordinate the launch of Hickey’s new book. As a result she got to spend a few days with the author, and she taped an interview with him.
Maura said she was less interested in revisiting the identity politics argument and more intrigued by his advice to art students to avoid studying or teaching in college, if they want to be great artists.
Listen to this excerpt aired on DnA to find out why, as well as why some artists have a sense of design, and what in his view distinguishes high and low art.