Seen, Written: Selected Essays

Klaus Kertess has long been one of the most consistently original, innovative, and insightful voices in the art world. After launching in 1966 and directing for ten years the influential Bykert Galleryuand with it the careers of several of today's most important artistsuKertess turned full time to writing about and curating contemporary art. Seen, Written brings together for the first time a wide selection of his essays from the last three decades. These texts expertly chart the course of American art from the 1960s through the present, exploring the foundation of art as well as the global context of art making in the twenty-first century. With lucid, beautifully written prose that deeply conveys both the look and the experience of art, Kertess's essays offer new understandings of well-known artists and point to those working today who are making groundbreaking and lasting contributions to contemporary art practice. Artists discussed in depth in the book include John Marin, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Malcolm Morley, Brice Marden, Alfonso Ossorio, Barry Le Va, Alan Saret, Keith Sonnier, John Chamberlain, Peter Hujar, Carroll Dunham, Matthew Ritchie, and Chris Ofili. Seen, Written is a joy to read and is certain to become an indispensable source for those interested in the art and culture of our time.

In 1966, Klaus Kertess cofounded the Bykert Gallery. Under his direction over the next decade, the Bykert Gallery represented Chuck Close, Barry Le Va, Brice Marden, Dorothea Rockburne, Alan Saret, and Paul Sharits, among many other significant artists. Since leaving the gallery in 1975 to pursue writing and curating, Kertess has worked with many of the most significant artists of the last four decades. Kertess has written for Artforum, Parkett, Art in America, and numerous other publications and has published monographs on Peter Hujar, Brice Marden, Joan Mitchell, and Jane Freilicher. He has recently written about John Chamberlain, Albert Oehlen, and Matthew Ritchie. Kertess has curated several major exhibitions, including the 1995 Whitney Biennial, Willem de Kooning: Drawing Seeing/Seeing Drawing for the Drawing Center in New York (1998), and Meditations in an Emergency, the inaugural exhibition for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit in 2007. Kertess received the Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Scholarly Excellence in the Field of American Art History from the Smithsonian's Archives for American Art in 2009.