God in the Gallery, Robyn O'Neil, and the Des Moines Art Center

The work of Houston-based artist Robyn O'Neil has been an important part of my development as a critic and curator over the last few years. (For information about the artist and her work go here.) O'Neil was a participant in the Whitney Biennial in 2004 and winner of the 2009 $50,000 Hunting Art Prize. A survey of her seven-year project that narrates the Apocalypse is currently on view at the Des Moines Art Center through 23 May. (For more information about the exhibition go here.) I took about twenty students with me to the Art Center in February for a special tour led by O'Neil herself, an experience that had a profound impact on their understanding of art and its relationship to life. I contributed an essay to the exhibition catalog, entitled "After the End: The Artistic Practice of Hope." Published by the Des Moines Art Center, the catalog, which also features essays by Patricia Hickson, the exhibition's curator and now curator of modern and contemporary art at the Wadsworth Atheneum and Brooke Anderson, Director of the American Folk Art Museum in New York. It will be distributed by D.A.P. and soon available here.