Tom Csaszar
Stenton Guild, 4732 Stenton Avenue, Philadelphia, PA. 19144
221 Crosshill Road, Wynnewood, PA 19096-3123
Phone: 610 642-3218 or 610 761-6947 email: rbtc@infionline.net
An artist, writer, and lecturer based in Philadelphia, Tom Csaszar has taught in the graduate schools of the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He has written numerous pieces over the last twenty-eight years for The Journal of Art, Artnews, Art in America, American Crafts, The New Art Examiner, Sculpture, Title Magazine.com, Artcritical.com and various gallery catalogues. His paintings have been shown regionally and locally for over forty years. A Contributing Editor of The New Art Examiner from 1993 - 2001, he is a member of the International Association of Art Critics, and the College Art Association. He has developed and taught seminars in graduate programs and given studio critiques since 2000 while maintaining an active studio practice. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Professional Chronology
1950 Born, Chicago, IL.
1969-74 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Undergraduate and Post-Graduate work in Fine Arts and English: BA
1975- present Exhibited paintings regionally in the Northeast at various galleries
1989- present Freelance writing for various art journals including The Journal of Art, Artnews, Art in America, American
Craft, Art Papers, Philadelphia City Paper, and artcritical.com
1993- 2001 Contributing Editor of The New Art Examiner
1993- 2008 Frequent contributor to Sculpture
1996- 99 Produced and coordinated centenary performances of Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Un Coup de dés” at Cedar Crest College,
Allentown, PA, The Ethical Society, Philadelphia, PA, and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York;
Csaszar’s translation of this poem appears in Manifesto: a century of isms, edited by Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln, NE:
Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2001
1996- 2000 Lectured at Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA; International Sculpture Symposium, Chicago, IL; Beaver College, Glenside,
PA; and St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA
2001 Co-curated “Future Imperfect” at Sharadin Art Gallery, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
2004 Presented paper on “Intentions and Translations in Visual Works” at the 1st International Visual Studies Conference,
Madrid
2005 Presented paper on “The Task of the Critic in the Digital Age” at the College Art Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta
2005 Presented paper and discussion on “Criticism: Overlapping Dialogues” at the International Turning Conference, Ursinus
College, Pennsylvania
2007 Interview with Do Ho Suh published in Conversations on Sculpture, edited by Glenn Harper, Seattle, WA: University of
Washington Press
1997- present Member of the International Assn. of Art Critics
2000 - 2012 Master Lecturer in Graduate Program of the University of the Arts, Philadelphia
2014- 2017 Contributor to on-line publications, Title Magazine and Artcritical
2002 - present Adjunct Faculty member for seminars and studio critiques in the Graduate Program of the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, as of 2016, Associate Professor selected exhibitions
2017 Cellini Gallery, Ambler, PA.
2016 Through PAFA exhibited at the Democratic National Committee Offices
2012 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
2009 Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
2009 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
2008 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
2004 Gallery 1301, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
2004 Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
2003 Gallery 1301, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 2001 Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
2001 Womanmade Gallery, Chicago, IL.
1999 Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA.
1997 American College, Bryn Mawr, PA.
1992 State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA.
1992 Cooperstown Art Association, Cooperstown, NY.
1988 Port of History Museum, Philadelphia, PA.
1987 Art in City Hall, Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, PA.
1985 University City Arts League, Philadelphia, PA.
1984 Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
1984 Port of History Museum, Philadelphia, PA.
1983 Twentieth Century Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
1982 University City Arts League, Philadelphia, PA.
1980 Forty-Eighth Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
1975 Brown Street Studio, Philadelphia, PA.
Selected writings available on the Internet
“The Heroism of the Crowd: Flânerie at the Barnes Foundation” Artcritical Magazine, May 11 2017
http://www.artcritical.com/2017/05/11/tom-csaszar-on-person-of-the-crowd/
“Plugging In and Moving On: Okwui Enwezor’s All the World’s Futures” Artcritical Magazine, September 23, 2015
http://www.artcritical.com/2015/09/23/tom-csaszar-on-the-venice-biennale/
“Bright Matter: Shinique Smith in Boston” Artcritical Magazine, April 28, 2015
http://www.artcritical.com/2015/04/28/tom-csaszar-on-shinique-smith/
“Visual Specialties: Three Shows, Three Parts of the Culture” Title Magazine July 8 2014
http://www.title-magazine.com/2014/07/visual-specialties-three-shows-three-parts-of-the-culture/
“Social Structures and Shared Autobiographies: A Conversation with Do-Ho Suh” Sculpture, December, 2005
http://images.exhibit-e.com/www_lehmannmaupin_com/09cef87c.pdf
http://www.johnatkin.net/archive/Navigator%20Publication.pdf
“Philadelphia Story” Artnet.com Magazine, March 2000
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/csaszar/csaszar3-1-00.asp
Website for visual works and writings http://www.tomcsaszar.com
Selected Published Writings
“The Heroism of the Crowd: Flânerie at the Barnes Foundation”
Artcritical Magazine, May 11 2017
“Fazal Sheikh”
Title Magazine, May 26, 2016
“Network as Artist: The Web as Creator of Aesthetic Experience”
Artcritical Magazine, May 9, 2016
“Plugging in and Moving On” The 2015 Venice Biennale
Artcritical Magazine, September 23, 2015
“Terry Adkins at the Venice Biennale”
Title Magazine, November 6, 2015
“Bright Matter: Shinique Smith in Boston”
Artcritical Magazine, April 28, 2015
“Allora and Calzadilla: Intervals”
Title Magazine, March 13, 2015
“Visual Specialties: Three Shows, Three Parts of the Culture”
Title Magazine July 8, 2014
“The Paintings of Scott Noel, Local Habitations and a Name”
Catalogue for Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
March 2012
“Seeing and Reading: Recent Works of Gerard Brown”
Catalogue for Finlandia University, Hancock, Michigan, Fall 2009
“Global Warming at the Icebox” Sculpture, September 2009
“Lynda Benglis: Material Personae” Sculpture, December, 2008
“Clay@Penn: Reading the Divergence of Ceramic Works”
Catalogue for the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Fall 2007
“Martha Posner” Sculpture, July/August, 2007
“Swarm” American Craft, August/September, 2006
“Mathew Ritchie” Sculpture, January/February, 2006
“Social Structures and Shared Autobiographies: A Conversation with Do-Ho Suh”
Sculpture, January/February, 2005
“Ron and Patti Fleming” American Craft, August/September, 2005
_______________________________
“FIAC, Paris” Sculpture, May, 2003
“Material Devices: The Drawings and Sculpture of John Atkin”
catalogue for Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, UK April 2003
“Mediated Pleasures: Alex Kanevsky”
catalogue for J. Cacciola Gallery New York, NY, March 2003
“Barnett Newman” Sculpture, November, 2002
“Mona Hatoum” Sculpture, July/August, 2001
“Italo Scanga” Sculpture, June, 2001
“Robert Taplin” Sculpture, March, 2001
“David Ireland” Art Papers, September-October 2000
“Charles Burwell” Art Papers, March 2000
“Philadelphia Story” Artnet.com Magazine, March 2000
“Ross Bleckner, Kevin Strickland” Phila. City Paper, March 2, 2000
“Sadashi Inuzuka” Sculpture, March, 2000
“Neysa Grassi” New Art Examiner, March, 2000
“Ron Klein” Sculpture, November, 1999
“James Croak by Thomas McEvilley” Sculpture, October, 1999
“Books on Duchamp” New Art Examiner, July/August, 1999
“Robert Roesch” Sculpture, June, 1999
“An Interview with Mary Ann Caws” Art Papers, May/June, 1999
“The Crisis of Criticism by Maurice Berger” New Art Examiner, November, 1998
“Richard H. Reinhardt: Full Circle” American Craft, October, 1998
“Self-Taught Artists” New Art Examiner, September, 1998
“Winifred Lutz: Perception’s Nature” Sculpture, March, 1998
Material Personae
Lynda Benglis
by Tom Csaszar
Lynda Benglis's recent sculptures consistently direct the viewer to their materials qualities. However, it is the narratives that develop in relation to the materials and shapes that are stressed in her works. As one moves from their commanding physical power to the richness of their metaphoric and emotional associations, their playful intelligence becomes more evident.
FULL ARTICLE
MATERIAL DEVICES:THE DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURE OF JOHN ATKIN
by Tom Csaszar
The sculptures and drawings of John Atkin present not so much images of machines as they do diagrams of machines incompletely realized in our imagination. His playful inventions are casual and direct statements. And yet, like a well-written Tokugawa haiku - as opposed to a poorly written Elizabethan sonnet - they are metaphoric and rhetorical in the sense that they help us to discover our own metaphors in them, rather than impress us with the cleverness of the packaged rhetoric of their creator. >>>
FULL ARTICLE
Perception's Nature
by Tom Csaszar
Winifred Lutz's installations have established her work internationally in the last dozen years. The recent retrospective of her sculpturesat Moore College of Art and Design's Levy Gallery in Philadelphia, titled "Place of Nature, Nature of Place," started with pieces dating from the late '70s and early '80s. This exhibition made it possible to discern the themes that underlie her diverse works. >>>
FULL ARTICLE
Eliot Deutsch
Interpreting Artworks: Prolegomenon to a Cross-Cultural Hermeneutic
Hermeneutics operates whenever what is
said is not immediately intelligible.
(H.G. Gadamer)
A great deal has been accomplished in recent times by philosophical hermeneutics in developing our understanding of what it means to interpret a "text", but very little substantive work, it seems, has been carried out to develop a cross-cultural or, in keeping with the terminology of this conference, "transcultural" hermeneutic.
Geist, Sidney.
"Sidney Geist on Criticism." Artforum. June 1962: 5.
A few quite simple lessons: That statements on art'make the same sense that we expect to find in statementsabout any other subject. That critics be "knowledgeable, sensitive, honest, Iiterate and artistic. That critics know what they are talking about, and talk only about what they know. This is not to say that there are no problems, difficulties, even mysteries in the realm of art. There are many.
Historical Legitimacy, Pictorial Order, and Critical Necessity
Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985, pp. 117 – 121.
Let us agree that any account we give of the historical reality will correspond to it in a very summary and diagrammatic form. It is a little like the correspondence between the schematic maps of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System or London Underground and the knotted complexities of the real things: (1) the diagram leaves much out; (2) it is a small-scale registration of a large thing, and a static registration of a moving thing; (3) its emphasis is much distorted by the demands of its own form, whether symbolic lines or symbolic words; (4) the medium is conventional and demands understanding itself; (5) it is directed to a specific sort of use; (6) its meaning lies in its relation to a more complex reality.
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