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Ben Davis

Ben Davis is an art critic living and working in New York City. His writings have appeared in Adbusters, Artinfo.com, Art Papers, C Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Frieze, Slate.com, The Village Voice, and many others. He is the national art critic for artnet News. Davis published his first book, 9.5 Theses on Art and Class, in 2013.

Artnet News, Features• September 28, 2020

“Proudly Broken and Refusing to ‘Fit'”: Legacy Russell on “Glitch Feminism”

By Ben Davis

Legacy Russell doesn’t do things IRL. Throughout her writing, you’ll find instead the term “AFK” (Away From Keyboard). As the mobile internet became ubiquitous in…

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Artnet News, Features• March 6, 2020

With Sharper Tools: Defending the National Endowment for the Arts

By Ben Davis

The Heritage Foundation and conservative groups like it have been trying to kill the National Endowment for the Arts for decades. Last month, the Trump…

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Artnet News, Features• July 27, 2019

How Protest Works Now: Understanding “The Tear Gas Biennial” and its Historic Effect

By Ben Davis

In the pantheon of texts about art, there are very, very few that have had the impact of “The Tear Gas Biennial.” Published online…

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Artnet News, Features• July 5, 2019

Where Do We Go From Here? Dubious Wealth and Ethical Funding

By Ben Davis

In the popular imagination, calling someone a “modern Medici” is a synonym for “visionary patron of the arts.” That association itself shows how much…

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Artnet News, Reviews• January 31, 2019

“Velvet Buzzsaw” Should Terrify the Artworld

By Ben Davis

Velvet Buzzsaw, launching on Netflix tomorrow, had me hooked from the first line uttered by its protagonist. In the opening scene, we see Jake Gyllenhaal’s…

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Artnet News, Features• March 26, 2018

An Always Fractured Order: Hal Foster’s Unromantic Avant-Garde

By Ben Davis

There is a small historical irony in the topic of Hal Foster’s lecture for the 67th A.W. Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of…

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Artnet News, Features• July 14, 2017

Hélio Oiticica’s Journey From Art Visionary to Coke Dealer and Back Again

By Ben Davis

Hélio Oiticica, one of the most famous figures of Brazil’s mid-century surge of experimental art, once said that his goal was to strike “a…

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Artnet News, Features• April 28, 2017

“The Only Things That are Unchangeable are Tombstones”: Vito Acconci (1940-2017)

By Ben Davis

Vito Acconci, a towering figure in the history of performance art, and more recently known for his experimental architecture, has died at the age…

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Artnet News, Features• February 13, 2017

Interrupting Business as Usual: A Close Reading of MoMA’s Muslim Ban Intervention

By Ben Davis

New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) recently rehung its prized Modern galleries, swapping out works by greats like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso for…

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Artnet News, Reviews• September 20, 2016

Towards the Profane: Mierle Laderman Ukeles Exercises Her “Maintenance” at Queens Museum

By Ben Davis

The Queens Museum is devoting more space than it has ever given over to a single artist to survey the career of Mierle Laderman…

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