Roberta Smith

3rd AICA-USA Distinguished Critic Lecture 2009:
Roberta Smith | Criticism: A Life Sentence

Roberta Smith. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Nov 5, 2009
6:30–8:00pm ET
The New School, Tishman Auditorium

The AICA-USA Distinguished Critic Lecture at The New School In an insightful, probing and personal analysis, Roberta Smith delivers this year’s AICA-USA Distinguished Critic Lecture at The New School. Under the title “Criticism: A Life Sentence,” Smith presents her view of the craft, process and usage of art criticism, and the rising challenges of crisis-management and relevance-maintenance.

Roberta Smith is the acclaimed senior art critic for the New York Times. She was born in New York City, raised in Lawrence, Kansas, and earned a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1969. An alumna of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art and the Paula Cooper Gallery before becoming a professional art critic in the 1970s, contributing to Artforum and serving as a senior editor for Art in America. In 1981 she became art critic for the Village Voice, before moving to the New York Times in 1986. In 2003, the College Art Association honored Smith with the prestigious Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism.

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