UGA alum Andy Battaglia (class of '97) will talk about his path from Athens to New York, where he has been writing about art and culture for more than 20 years. Currently the executive editor of ARTnews and Art in America, he has written for publications starting with the Red & Black and Flagpole and continuing through to Frieze, Artforum, the Paris Review, the Onion A.V. Club, the Wall Street Journal, Pitchfork, the Guardian, and many others. Among the artists and thinkers he has engaged are Matthew Barney, Kevin Beasley, Carol Bove, Fred Moten, La Monte Young, Robert Wilson, Morton Subotnick, Michael Stipe, Alanna Heiss, and others. With a special interest in music and sound, he has also worked as an organizer and curator for Unsound, a project devoted to music and sound-art that presents concerts, discussions, and presentations in Krakow, Poland, as well as New York and points beyond.
The talk will touch on the ups and down of a life lived through journalism, different approaches to reporting and criticism, and ways that coverage of art in its many forms has evolved and changed.