Dean Kissick is Spiralling
Dean Kissick’s Downward Spiral chronicled the art world’s contradictions with the breathless urgency of an end-times prophet. Now, with the column closed and the critic in semi-exile, the question lingers: was he a voice of his generation, or just another scenester burning out on his own myth?
By Cameron Hurst
Issue 1, Summer 2023/24
In December of last year, the critic Dean Kissick penned the final instalment of his remarkably popular monthly Spike art magazine column, “The Downward Spiral." It was an occasion. The column, which began in 2017, had transformed from reflections on American art world news — artists protesting Ivanka Trump’s zombie formalist collection and Dana Schutz’s Open Casket — to a series of rambling autofictional meditations that interspersed analysis of identity politics with references to mediaeval Netherlandish painting and occult Balenciaga symbolism. The tone was charming and distinctive. The content was compelling. Like all great critics, Kissick has a knack for writing in a style that balances the conversational and the erudite; he has a fan’s enthusiasm and an aesthete’s discernment.
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Cameron Hurst is a writer and art historian. She is an editor of The Paris End newsletter and is currently doing a PhD on Northern European Renaissance art at the University of Melbourne.
