Rob Marks
class of 2011
about
Rob Marks writes about art and aesthetic philosophy and has published regularly in Frieze, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, Art Practical, and Daily Serving. His work explores the relationship between embodied and intellectual experiences of art, the perceived tension between politically engaged and aesthetically focused art, the effect of the art participant’s aesthetic judgments on their experiences, and the structures and conventions of museums. He has published several reinterpretations of Richard Serra’s sculptural work, including a book chapter on their spatial-temporality and a Kantian analysis of their beauty and sublimity. He is currently completing an article on the overlooked surfaces of Serra’s steel sculptures and is working on projects related to the aesthetic content of representations catastrophe and representations of homelessness. Rob won the Hannah Arendt Prize in Critical Theory and Creative Research and has been shortlisted for a Kone Foundation Residency and a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. In 2018, he left his job of many years where be co-authored and edited articles, books, and newsletters for a pioneering LGBTQ and HIV mental health organization. He now devotes himself to art writing. In addition to a VCS MA, Rob has an MA in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. He has trained extensively in figure drawing, has produced artworks that incorporate drawing and construction, and has collaborated on book arts projects with his partner, Saul Rosenfield. Rob grew up in New York and lives in San Francisco.
Selected Publications
“Ceci n’est pas un mot: It’s Word Art,” Art Practical, April 24, 2018
“In the Body’s Space, the Body’s Time: Feeling Your Way Through Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time,” in Sarah Lippert, ed., Space and Time in Artistic Practice and Aesthetics: The Legacy of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2017)
“Looking at Sound, Listening to Sight,” Art Practical, October 17, 2017
“Saraceno’s Anthropocenic Art and the Rise of the Aerocene,” X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, vol. 19, no. 4 (2017): 20-37
“Home Land Security,” Frieze, October 24, 2016
“Inside-Out and Outside-In: The Reopening of SFMOMA,” Frieze, May 23, 2016
“Site Unseen, Time Unbound: The Double Life of Richard Serra’s Gutter Corner Splash,” X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, vol. 18, no. 4 (2016): 49-73
“Sequence’s Travels Into Several Notions of the Museum,” Art Practical, April 30, 2015
“Anselm Kiefer at Mass MoCA,” Daily Serving, October 28, 2014
“Terry Berlier: Erased Loop Random Walk,” Art Practical, January 14, 2014
“Substance and Accident: Anoka Faruqee,” Art Practical, December 2, 2013
“Mining,” Art Practical, October 14, 2013
“Time After Time: The Clock at SFMOMA,” Daily Serving, May 29, 2013
“Silence,” Art Practical, April 24, 2013
“No Wrong Way In, No Wrong Way Out,” Daily Serving, April 22, 2013
“Jay DeFeo: Spatial Relations,” Daily Serving, January 11, 2013
“The Site of Imaginative Contention,” Untitled, October 15, 2012: (First place essay, Hannah Arendt Prize in Critical Theory and Creative Research).
“The Museum on My Mind,” Daily Serving, 4-part series on museum commentary and structure.
Reposted as part of the “Best of 2012” series: Part I: “If the Walls Would Not Speak,” September 7, 2012; Part II: “Writing on Water,” October 5, 2012; Part III: “Struggling Toward Wonder,” November 2, 2012; Part IV: “Play Is the Thing,” December 6, 2012.
“Going Up at SFMOMA,” Daily Serving, August 7, 2012
“Matter and Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler,” Art Practical, vol. 3, no. 14, May 3, 2012
“John Cage,” Art Practical, vol. 3, no. 11, March 15, 2012
“Act. Repeat. Suspend. Sharon Lockhart’s Lunch Break at SFMOMA,” Daily Serving, December 5, 2011
“Recovering Site and Mind: Richard Serra’s Sequence Arrives at Stanford,” Daily Serving, September 12, 2011
Reposted on December 28, 2011 as part of “Best of 2011” series