Benjamin H.D. Buchloh

Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art, Harvard University. Art critic, theoretician and historian. Writes extensively on European and American contemporary artists from the post-World War II period to the present.  Unparalleled command of two different and largely isolated artistic cultures - American and European modernism. Rejecting the traditional notion of postmodernism, Buchloh's studies of post-1945 art examine works from both their social and formal perspectives, reconciling these two traditionally disparate approaches and essentially ending a conflict that had divided art historians for several decades. His writings have continually demonstrated his belief that an artwork's sociopolitical milieu is best understood through examination of its physical form and characteristics. Works include Gerhard Richter: Painting after the Subject of History (1993) and Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry, Essays on European and American Art from 1955-1975 (2001).