Category: Critic
Nationality: German
Last Year: New
Academic, writer, curator, this former editor of German music magazines Sounds and Spex, and current professor at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts is that rare individual who can marry criticism of art and music without coming across as a fool. He produces an avalanche of fiercely analytical yet occasionally breezy writing to wide admiration, and this year curated Rock – Paper – Scissors, an exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz on art’s relationship to pop music. His 2008 book On (Surplus) Value in Art employs a Marxist approach to the dematerialisation of the art object in the face of filesharing and download culture in a weakened economy, revealing a rare voice willing to step up and face some of art’s most pressing concerns.