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David Raskin

Professor, Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History

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Bio

David Raskin is the Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History at SAIC.

He earned his Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Texas, his M.A. in Art History and Criticism from Stony Brook University, and his A.B. in Visual Arts and Psychology from Brown University. He teaches seminars on Ekphrastic Writing and topics in Modern and Contemporary Art, including Minimalism, Pop, Postminimalism, Jackson Pollock, Vito Acconci, Rosalind Krauss, Michael Fried, Andy Warhol, and “feedback” in installation, performance, and video art.

Many institutions have supported Raskin’s scholarly work and research, including the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Whitney Museum.

Raskin’s pioneering monograph, Donald Judd (2010), has been reviewed or noted in more than 26 publications, including Art History, Art Journal, Burlington Magazine, The Art Newspaper, and The Times Literary Supplement. His other writings are widely read, and he has contributed essays to catalogs of exhibitions at the Tate Modern, London; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Ca’ Pesaro Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Venice; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Experience at SAIC

Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History (2000). Chair: Department of Sculpture; Chair: Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism; Chair: Fiscal Affairs, Faculty Senate Committee; and Chair: Faculty Contract and Tenure Review Board.

Selected Books

  • Jose Dávila. Contributor, 2023. 
  • Barry x Ball: Medardo Rosso Project. Contributor, 2019. 
  • Sam Falls. Contributor, 2018. 
  • Joel Shapiro. Contributor, 2017.
  • Matt Siber: Idol Structures. Co-author, 2015. 
  • Noriyuki Haraguchi. Co-author, 2014. 
  • Jo Baer. Contributor, 2013.
  • The Language of Less (Then and Now). Contributor, 2011.
  • Donald Judd. Author, 2010; 2019 reissue. 
  • Olle Bærtling: A Modern Classic. Contributor, 2007
  • Midwestern Unlike You and Me: New Zealand's Julian Dashper. Co-author, 2005. 
  • Donald Judd. Co-author, 2004. 

Selected Essays

Art History; Art Journal; Art in America; New Art Examiner; Arte Al Dia International; Art Criticism; Art History Versus Aesthetics; Encyclopedia of Aesthetics; The Burlington Magazine; Common Knowledge; caa.reviews; ASAP Journal; Bomb Magazine.

Personal Statement

SAIC is an exciting place to practice art history and ekphrasis. I am part of a large department of modern and contemporary art specialists with diverse perspectives and areas of expertise. When teaching, my main goal is to have a lively conversation in which the entire class looks at the art we are studying and uses it to debate broader social, political, and philosophical issues. The wider art school community is a vibrant place where artists, critics, and scholars come together to ask the same question when confronted by masterpieces from history and the work inside their studios: why does art matter now?

In my research practice, I tell stories about art that situate the moment of its encounter within art-historical scholarship. My goal is to probe personal experiences for their broader cultural implications. I ask what we expect from art, why we have these desires, and how art satisfies or frustrates these needs. I published my first essay on art in 1994 as a participant in the famed Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and my first creative nonfiction story 30 years later, in 2024.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This is an advanced section of the survey of world art and culture, prehistory to 1850. It is intended for BAAH students, Scholars Program students, and students interested in the history of writing about art (and teaching the survey). We will begin at 500,000 BC, and cover approximately 50 cultures; the list is at ow.ly/Y902K. In each case we will also question the ways historians describe the culture; we will study the ways art history textbooks promote certain senses of art and national identity; and we will consider how other institutions have tried to teach the global survey. The class is difficult, and requires a lot of memorization. Concurrent Registration in one ARTHI 1101: Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of World Art Prehistory to 1850 is required.

Class Number

1040

Credits

3

Description

This museum-based seminar welcomes writers of all kinds, including creative writers, critics, and scholars. We explore literary forms, including poetry, short stories, personal essays, plays, and songs, along with their connections to visual art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Each week, we analyze literary pieces inspired by a work of art and then visit the museum to discuss that art in person. We will examine how the readings enhance or challenge the artwork and debate the impact of the words and images. Additionally, we will hold weekly writing workshops to provide feedback on each other¿s work, focusing on prompt-based assignments that directly engage with the art in the collection while developing both visual acuity and writing craft skills.

Class Number

2363

Credits

3

Description

We will visit the Art Institute of Chicago almost every day, allowing us a unique opportunity to explore primarily European and American art from the 1870s to the present, broadened and enriched by the museum's collections and special exhibitions. Class time emphasizes interaction and will be divided into lectures, discussions of reading assignments, and conversations about art. Specific topics will be based on the collections on display, with recurring themes centering on materiality, context, and presentation. Writing assignments will be structured in a progressive manner that culminates in a final paper on a work of art of each student's choosing. Graduate students in Art History can fulfill their 19th-century or early 20th-century requirements through this course.

Class Number

1009

Credits

3

Description

This class is the second component of a two-semester class that equips senior students earning a BAAH or a BFA with Art History Thesis with the skills to develop an advanced art historical research project, in this case: the senior thesis. It provides writers working on independent research projects with structure, guidance, constructive criticism, and a supportive peer community for discussion of their work in progress. Writers meet regularly with the instructor and their classmates to develop their ideas, address problems, and steer their projects to completion. The course combines individual mentoring of students as they engage in the sustained research and writing of a capstone project, with exposing students to a range of art historical professions and coaching students to prepare for careers in art history. The focus of this development from students to professionals, is both on the ethics of professional conduct in the field of art history as well as the content of various art historical careers. To this end, students will research, prepare, and submit one career-related written proposal, such as graduate school application, residency application, conference presentation proposal, publication submission or other.

Class Number

1069

Credits

3

Description

This museum-based seminar welcomes writers of all kinds ¿ creative writers, critics, and scholars. We explore literary forms such as poetry, short stories, personal essays, plays, and songs, along with their connections to visual art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Each week, we analyze literary pieces inspired by a work of art and then visit the museum to discuss that art in person. We will examine how the readings enhance or challenge the artwork and debate the impact of the words and images. Additionally, we will hold weekly writing workshops to provide feedback on each other¿s work, focusing on prompt-based assignments that directly engage with the art in the collection while developing both visual acuity and writing craft skills.

Class Number

2018

Credits

3

Description

This graduate seminar is for all types of writers (creative writers, critics, and scholars) who want to analyze the dimensions of literary, paraliterary, and scholarly forms of description, interpretation, and explanation, and their interdisciplinary intersections and boundaries. Poetry, short stories, personal essays, passages from novels, and art-history articles will form the ground for weekly encounters with works of art in the Art Institute of Chicago, as we compare what we read to what we encounter in person.
Each class meeting has a tripartite structure, as we compare a literary or paraliterary engagement with a work of art, evaluate a scholarly argument about the same piece or its creator, and personally engage the same or similar work in the Art Institute of Chicago. We will respond to the works of art currently on display, and, as warranted, pair the appropriate scholarship with creative works by writers such as Ada Limón, Victoria Chang, Hilton Als, Ben Lerner, Diane Seuss, Mark Doty, Hanif Abdurraqib, Wayne Koestenbaum, Vivek Shraya, Cris Kraus, Teju Cole, Eileen Myles, Gwendolyn Brooks, Paisley Rekdal, Rachel Cohen, Jeffrey Yang, and John Ashbery, among others.
Students will write concise analyses of every reading assignment plus a weekly follow-up reflection as preparation for a final hybrid research paper that situates their personal moment of encounter with a work of art in the Art Institute of Chicago within art-historical scholarship. The goal is for students to probe their personal experiences with art for wider cultural implications.

Class Number

2090

Credits

3