ROBERT STORR are countless artists who show in these Rob is categorically of Art Criticism from the American Section are treated as irreconcilable, as they commonly venues, not only painters and sculptors anti-categorical, of the International Association of Art Critics, are, it is impossible to grasp the full complexity Gertrude Vanderbilt but photographers, video and fi lm makers, the iCI Agnes Gund Curatorial Award, the of human experience and art. In his criticism, conceptual artists, and installation and generously open Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Scholarly Rob also responds to the traumatized mood of Whitney Award to every tendency in for Outstanding performance artists, all of whom are encom- Excellence in the Field of Art History from the world affl icted by wars, terrorism, racism, passed in a global art world of extraordinary contemporary art. the , and has been genocide, and ecological devastation, among Patronage of the Arts complexity. It is impossible to follow it all. made an Offi cier des Arts et des Lettres by other social disasters. When information overload overwhelms me the French Ministry of Culture. In sum, Rob is I turn to Rob Storr. among the savviest and most knowledgeable I am convinced that Rob Storr has been persons in the art world. cloned into multiple Rob Storrs. They all merit Tributes such as this are meant to boost the the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Award for subject. In Rob’s case, it’s not necessary. Rob is categorically anti-categorical, generously Outstanding Patronage of the Arts. The facts of his contribution to art, art criticism, open to every tendency in contemporary art. art history, curatorship, and art education He has curated major museum shows Irving Sandler speak for themselves. He is a dedicated and written articles and catalogue introductions Writer and Critic painter, a Professor of Painting and Dean of on artists ranging from to Louise the Yale Art School, an editor of Art in America Bourgeois to Adrian Piper, and from Chuck and contributor to Artforum, Parkett, and Close to Elizabeth Murray to Gerhard Richter many other publications, a consulting curator to Bruce Nauman as well as Leon Golub, at the Museum of Art, and an Ilya Kabakov, , Martin Puryear, advisor for not-for-profi t art organizations, such Robert Ryman, Nancy Spero, and literally When I entered the art world in the early fi fties, as the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation. dozens of other artists. The shows that he has there were 16 galleries worth visiting, eight His contribution to the Sharpe Foundation, organized have all been must-see and his commercial venues uptown that barely got by, on whose Advisory Committee he and I serve, essays on art have been models of elucidation, and eight artist cooperatives on and around has been invaluable. insight, and elegant prose. Tenth Street; some 200 artists in the New York School; a dozen or so sympathetic critics, Rob has been a curator of the Department But there is more. Rob’s approach to art is curators, and collectors; two mediums— of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of enlightened and empathetic. His motto for the painting and sculpture—and no need to look Modern Art, overall Director of the 2007 Venice Venice Biennale, namely Think with the Senses, at anything outside of New York. Today, in Biennale, and the Rosalie Solow Professor Feel with the Mind, sums up his aesthetic. New York alone, there are six hundred galleries, of Art History at ’s Institute He tellingly juggles polarities—mind and body, of Fine Art. He has also received an award thought and feeling, the conceptual and the PHOTO not to mention auction houses, which service Lyle Ashton Harris a mushrooming art market. Moreover, there for Distinguished Contribution to the Field perceptual. He believes that if these polarities