Dave Hickey, Art Critic and Theorist to be Commencement Speaker, May 15, 2010

Watkins College of Art, Design & Film is pleased to welcome Dave Hickey to Nashville as the commencement speaker at the 2010 college graduation ceremony on May 15, 2010. Mr. Hickey is one of the most preeminent art critics writing today.

Dave Hickey is a free-lance writer of fiction and cultural criticism. He is presently Professor of Modern Letters at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Mr. Hickey has written for most major cultural publications in the United States and abroad. These include The Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Interview, Harpers Magazine, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Nest, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

Highlights of his publications are as follows:

• The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) published by Art Issues Press.
• The Invisible Dragon: Revised and Expanded (2008) published by University of Chicago Press.
• Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (1998) published by Art Issues Press.
• Stardumb (1999) published by Artspace Press. 

In 2009, Newsweek Magazine selected Air Guitar as one of the most important books of the 20th Century. Interviews with Mr. Hickey have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, New Art Examiner, Public Events, The Art Newspaper and many other magazines and journals. He has been interviewed as an authority for numerous televised and filmed documentaries.