Robert Hughes and The Shock of the New.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the release of his landmark documentary series The Shock of the New and its accompanying book, a group of the late Robert Hughes’ inner circle discusses his life and work.
The much celebrated Australian novelist Peter Carey and two of America’s leading arts writers - The New Yorker magazine’s Adam Gopnik and The New York Times' Michael Kimmelman - join the President of the American Friends Michael Maher for a riveting, insightful and intimate look at the man widely regarded as the greatest art critic of his generation.

[@AlexanderNixonArtHistory]

I am an Art History Professor and Artist and I share Robert Hughes' work with my students every semester. He brings gravitas, passion, and intellect to the Art World.

[@sophieosullivan4679]

It is a great shame that this outstanding series is not available to stream on BritBox or BBC IPlayer.

[@S_Edward_Burns_ArtsEditor]

Yeah for sure Hughes' work endures. Many thanks. Carry on!

[@tomrobison10]

Great stories and insights. Robert Hughes had such an honest, subversive and hilarious voice. One always had the feeling that he was a loyal man of the people, and of the culture and the collective memory belongs to the people. RIP Robert Hughes.

[@warrenstutely7151]

Wonderful stuff. !! Many thanks. Warren

[@cbftoole]

Thanks for that. I just bought the book! I'm an ex-pat in Boston

[@maxruec]

This was fascinating, captivating and illuminating ... thank you.

[@noel-ec4iy]

this is fabulous

[@GginoBlue]

I think Shock Of The New was successful for several reasons; one being that, like food at that time, Americans began to have an appetite for knowing about it. Also it was Hughes voice, the sound of it, the accent and it’s authority. His voice is to his tv series what the name “McDonald’s” is to the fast food chain. There is solidity and weight in these seemingly peripheral things, the connotations of which drive us. Hughes was the first to embrace the whole of Modern Art’s timeline and give it legible shape. He didn’t do that like a sculptor chiseling away at a hard substance to reveal the thing within but rather as one forming a thing with his hands from a large lump of damp red clay. We didn’t know we needed that until Hughes made the series and the book. And as Malraux said about Impressionism it wasn’t that it was more true than what came before, it was simply more vivid. I think what Adam Gopnik and Michael Kimmelman say about Hughes becoming calcified in his last decades of art criticism is not wrong but neither was Hughes wrong for becoming rigid about his views. When Hughes made The Shock of the New it was also, coincidentally, when the art world’s nose really tilted down toward art’s commodification. Hughes story of modern art is one of great ambitions. creativity reflected great breakthroughs in society, technology, and scientific understanding. The art made in the 1970’s and 80’s was a mop-up situation that became the stagnant art world we have today; a marketplace of decorations meant to signify rather than ‘be’ art. There is little striving for excellence anymore other than that of craftsmanship’s ambition to make handmade objects look machine-made. I say Hughes was right to be disgusted because he lived long enough to see what we possibly see now: that art may have outlived it’s usefulness to humanity. In the end Hughes kept the faith, even if that meant sharing a beer with dumb reactionaries over clinking champagne glasses with the smart money who’ve fooled themselves by seeing with their ears. -Gene Valentin

[@Paintlater]

Fabulous- don’t know which book to re-read after this!

[@jaaksavat7916]

American vision

[@royport2657]

Most insightful from those who knew Robert

[@philippa5004]

Thanks for posting

[@papalangiloi]

Carey is the only person to shine, nimbly avoiding the casual attack on Robert Hughes indulged in by the mediocre Gopnik, limply supported by Kimmelman. Hughes was an iconoclast.The pretence that there is something beautiful about the work of Koons et al is to compare McDonald's burgers to cordon bleu and simply ridiculous. Hughes lamented the ugliness of modern art, it's perpetuation of the commercial as some kind of vanguard for an insider club and the pursuit of the novel ahead of transcendent human experience from our current reality. The trite age we currently live in would benefit from more thinkers of his calibre, at the very least we would not have critics telling us excrement is clay. His work was a call to arms and I for one celebrate his wit, antipodean charm and willingness to call a spade a spade. It is clear he has made a place in history and public memory for his honesty and enthusiasm something which unfortunately the post modern post structural types fail to understand. The only person currently of stature and intellectual capacity to hold a candle to him is Camille Paglia. Thanks for this review of his legacy, the giant still casts a long shadow.

[@julianfoster3581]

Hear, hear! Calling a spade a spade has become unfashionable if not politically incorrect. Market prices are no reflection of value or merit of any kind and only reflect fashion and desire. And as Hughes said, nothing is more manipulable than desire.

[@maxruec]

Nice sidestep Peter!

[@philippa5004]

Mine also lent & vanished! 🤣