IN HER 2010 MONOGRAPH ON HANNAH WILKE, Nancy Princenthal writes this:

. . . . throughout her graphic oeuvre, the issue of beauty is as central as it is in her photographic self-portraits.

She might really believe that. Nevertheless, Princenthal’s comment is indivisible from the abuse of language that constitutes so much contemporary art writing. It can hardly be called criticism. On the academic/critical circuit, words mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean. It is all a rhetorical game aimed at producing judgmentless judgments that have the required ring of sobriety about them. Continue Reading