Dave Hickey | |
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 Hickey in 1969 | |
| Born | David Hickey (1938-12-05)December 5, 1938 Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.[1] |
| Died | November 12, 2021(2021-11-12) (aged 82) Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Art critic |
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| Spouse | Libby Lumpkin |
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David Hickey (December 5, 1938 – November 12, 2021[2]) was an American art critic who wrote for many American publications includingRolling Stone,ARTnews,Art in America,Artforum,Harper's Magazine, andVanity Fair. He was nicknamed "The Bad Boy of Art Criticism"[3] and "The Enfant Terrible of Art Criticism".[4] He had been professor of English at theUniversity of Nevada Las Vegas and distinguished professor of criticism for the MFA program in the Department of Art & Art History at theUniversity of New Mexico.
Hickey graduated fromTexas Christian University in 1961 and received his MA from theUniversity of Texas two years later. In 1989,SMU Press publishedPrior Convictions, a volume of his short fiction. He was owner-director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place, an art gallery inAustin, Texas, and director of the Reese Palley Gallery in New York. He served as executive editor forArt in America magazine, as contributing editor toThe Village Voice, as staff songwriter for Glaser Publications in Nashville, and as the arts editor for theFort Worth Star-Telegram.
He wrote for most major cultural publications in the United States and abroad, includingRolling Stone,ARTnews,Art in America,Artforum,Interview,Harper's Magazine,Vanity Fair,Nest,The New York Times, and theLos Angeles Times. Hickey regularly published "Revisions", a monthly column forArt in America. He also wrote for European publications likeThe London Review of Books,frieze (London),Situation (Paris), andParkett (Zurich).
He was known for his arguments againstacademicism and in favor of the effects of rough-and-tumble free markets on art. His critical essays have been published in two volumes:The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) andAir Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (1997). In 2009, Hickey published a revised and updated version ofThe Invisible Dragon, adding an introduction that addressed changes in the art world since the book's original publication, as well as a new concluding essay.
"I write love songs for people who live in a democracy", he remarked.[5]
Profiles of Hickey have appeared inTime magazine,The New York Times, theLos Angeles Times,Los Angeles Times Magazine,The Wall Street Journal,Newsweek,U.S. News & World Report,The Economist, andFlaunt, among other publications. Interviews with Hickey have been published in theLos Angeles Times,Bomb, theNew Art Examiner,Public Events,A Gathering of the Tribes,The Art Newspaper, and other magazines. He has been interviewed several times on topics such as art and Las Vegas by theBBC,PBS, andNPR.
In 2014, Hickey began making posts onFacebook during an illness. Eighteen months later, art historian Julia Friedman suggested a project documenting his experience. Two books resulted from the collaboration:Wasted Words andDust Bunnies, published in 2016.[6][7] Both books appeared in a lengthy review published byThe Times Literary Supplement.[8]
In 2015, he wrote the essay "War Is Beautiful, They Say" for the bookWar is Beautiful: The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict byDavid Shields. This essay described the painterly influences and inspirations behind several war photographs published byThe New York Times.[9]
Hickey was married to art historian Libby Lumpkin. He died inSanta Fe, New Mexico, on November 12, 2021, at the age of 82.[10]
In 1994, Hickey received theFrank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism from theCollege Art Association.[11] In 2001, he became a recipient of aMacArthur Fellowship, the so-called "genius grant".[12] In 2003, Hickey was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Friends of theUniversity of Nevada, Reno, Libraries.[13] He won aPeabody Award for his 2006 documentary aboutAndy Warhol for theAmerican Masters series, which aired on PBS in 2006.[14]
In 1997 Art Issues Press publishedAir Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy, a memoir containing 23 essays or "love songs" addressing his experiences as a music critic and an art dealer.The Invisible Dragon was originally published in 1993 with a new revised and expanded edition published in 2012. It is a series of provocative essays that encourage readers to reconsider the role of beauty in art.Pirates and Farmers was published byRidinghouse in 2013, and featured essays by Hickey from 1999 to 2013. This body of short essays looks at contemporary phenomena including super-collectors, the trope of thebiennale and the loss of looking.[15]25 Women: Essays on Their Art was published by theUniversity of Chicago Press in 2016, and featured essays by Hickey from the past twenty years. This body of short essays analyzes the work ofJoan Mitchell,Bridget Riley,Fiona Rae,Lynda Benglis, Karen Carson, and many others.[16]Wasted Words: The Essential Dave Hickey Online Compilation was published by PCP Press in 2016. This book features almost 3,000 digital comments on social media, prompting nearly 700,000 words in response from art lovers, acolytes, and skeptics between June 2014 and April 2015. These writings highlight the impact of digital technology on the author and his online-audience.[17][18][19]Dust Bunnies: Dave Hickey's Online Aphorisms June 2014 - March 2015 was also published by PCP Press in 2016. This second volume was edited by art historian Julia Friedman. This book is a 124-page collection of fragments selected fromWasted Words, the vast digital discourse from Dave Hickey's social media pages during June 2014 and March 2015. These writings highlight verbal riffs of Hickey blasting away at digital natives and his online-audience.[20][21][19][22][23] In 2017 the University of Chicago Press published the collectionPerfect Wave: More Essays on Art and Democracy.[24]
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