You Don't Hate Me, You Hate Yourself and Other Epiphanies About Art Criticism in the 21st Century.
Location
Leitner House, Pierson College 261 Park St.
About the Speaker
Hrag Vartanian is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic. He is an editor, art critic, curator, and lecturer on contemporary art with an expertise in the intersection of art and politics.
Hrag co-founded the publication Hyperallergic in 2009 in response to changes in the art world, the publishing industry, and the distribution of information. Breaking news, award-winning reporting, informed opinions, and quality conversations about art have helped Hyperallergic reach over a million readers and listeners a month.
In 2016, Hrag launched the Hyperallergic Podcast, which tells stories from around the world (iTunes). Some notable episodes have delved into the history of Surrealism in Egypt, the story of the largely unknown female Abstract Expressionists, the history of Blackface in Canada, and front-line coverage of the artists taking part in the #StopDAPL action at the Standing Rock reservation in the state of North Dakota. He has also done in-depth interviews with leaders in the contemporary art field, including innovative feminist art historian Linda Nochlin, artist Audrey Flack, key players in the Decolonize This Place activist movement, poet and critic John Yau, artist Michael Rakowitz, and pioneering meme theorist An Xiao Mina.
He champions a type of straight-forward online art criticism that believes in the power of journalism, while retaining a sensitivity to the cultural and economic realities that inform the world of art, culture, and politics. In May 2018, art critic Mary-Louise Schumacher wrote about the rise of Hyperallergic for Neiman Reports at Harvard University.
