Books by Jarrett Earnest

The Young and Evil: Queer Modernism in New York, 1930–1955

by Jarrett Earnest

Lauded by Jerry Saltz as “one of the most reactionary yet radical visions of art,” The Young and Evil tells the story of a group of artists and writers active during the first half of the twentieth century, when homosexuality was as problematic for American culture as figuration was for modernist painting.

These artists—including Paul Cadmus, Fidelma Cadmus Kirstein, Charles Henri Ford, Jared French, Margaret Hoening French, George Platt Lynes, Bernard Perlin, Pavel Tchelitchew, George Tooker, Alexander Jensen Yow, and their circle—were new social creatures, playfully and boldly homosexual at a time when it was both criminalized and pathologized. They pursued a modernism of the body—driven by eroticism and bounded by intimacy, forming a hothouse world within a world that doesn’t nicely fit any subsequent narrative of modern American art. In their work, they looked away from abstraction toward older sources and models—classical and archaic forms of figuration and Renaissance techniques. What might be seen as a reactionary aesthetic maneuver was made in the service of radical content—endeavoring to depict their own lives. Their little-known history is presented here through never-before-exhibited photographs, sculptures, drawings, ephemera, and rarely seen major paintings—offering the first view of its kind into their interwoven intellectual, artistic, and personal lives.

Edited by Jarrett Earnest, who also curated the exhibition, The Young and Evil features new scholarship by art historians Ann Reynolds and Kenneth E. Silver and an interview with Alexander Jensen Yow by Michael Schreiber.

What it Means to Write About Art Interviews with art critics

by Jarrett Earnest

The most comprehensive portrait of art criticism ever assembled, as told by the leading writers of our time.

In the last fifty years, art criticism has flourished as never before. Moving from niche to mainstream, it is now widely taught at universities, practiced in newspapers, magazines, and online, and has become the subject of debate by readers, writers, and artists worldwide.

Equal parts oral history and analysis of craft, What It Means to Write About Art offers an unprecedented overview of American art writing. These thirty in-depth conversations chart the role of the critic as it has evolved from the 1960s to today, providing an invaluable resource for aspiring artists and writers alike. John Ashbery recalls finding Rimbaud’s poetry through his first gay crush at sixteen; Rosalind Krauss remembers stealing the design of October from Massimo Vignelli; Paul Chaat Smith details his early days with Jimmy Durham in the American Indian Movement; Dave Hickey talks about writing country songs with Waylon Jennings; Michele Wallace relives her late-night and early-morning interviews with James Baldwin; Lucy Lippard describes confronting Clement Greenberg at a lecture; Eileen Myles asserts her belief that her negative review incited the Women’s Action Coalition; and Fred Moten recounts falling in love with Renoir while at Harvard.

Jarrett Earnest’s wide-ranging conversations with critics, historians, journalists, novelists, poets, and theorists—each of whom approach the subject from unique positions—illustrate different ways of writing, thinking, and looking at art.

Interviews with Hilton Als, John Ashbery, Bill Berkson, Yve-Alain Bois, Huey Copeland, Holland Cotter, Douglas Crimp, Darby English, Hal Foster, Michael Fried, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve, Dave Hickey, Siri Hustvedt, Kellie Jones, Chris Kraus, Rosalind Krauss, Lucy Lippard, Fred Moten, Eileen Myles, Molly Nesbit, Jed Perl, Barbara Rose, Jerry Saltz, Peter Schjeldahl, Barry Schwabsky, Paul Chaat Smith, Roberta Smith, Lynne Tillman, Michele Wallace, and John Yau.

Tell Me Something Good

by Jarrett Earnest, Lucas Zwirner, Phong Bui

Since 2000, The Brooklyn Rail has been a platform for artists, academics, critics, poets, and writers in New York and abroad. The monthly journal’s continued appeal is due in large part to its diverse contributors, many of whom bring contrasting and often unexpected opinions to conversations about art and aesthetics. No other publication devotes as much space to the artist’s voice, allowing ideas to unfold and idiosyncrasies to emerge through open discussion.

Since its inception, cofounder and artistic director Phong Bui and the Rail’s contributors have interviewed over four hundred artists for The Brooklyn Rail. This volume brings together for the first time a selection of sixty of the most influential and seminal interviews with artists ranging from Richard Serra and Brice Marden, to Alex Da Corte and House of Ladosha. While each interview is important in its own right, offering a perspective on the life and work of a specific artist, collectively they tell the story of a journal that has grown during one of the more diverse and surprising periods in visual art. There is no unified style or perspective; The Brooklyn Rail’s strength lies in its ability to include and champion difference.

Selected and coedited by Jarrett Earnest, a frequent Rail contributor, with Lucas Zwirner, the book includes an introduction to the project by Phong Bui as well as many of the hand-drawn portraits he has made of those he has interviewed over the years. This combination of verbal and visual profiles offers a rare and personal insight into contemporary visual culture.

Interviews with Vito Acconci, Ai Weiwei, Lynda Benglis, James Bishop, Chris Burden, Vija Celmins, Francesco Clemente, Bruce Conner, Alex Da Corte, Rosalyn Drexler, Keltie Ferris, Simone Forti, Andrea Fraser, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Suzan Frecon, Coco Fusco, Robert Gober, Leon Golub, Ron Gorchov, Michelle Grabner, Josephine Halvorson, Sheila Hicks, David Hockney, Roni Horn, House of Ladosha, Alfredo Jaar, Bill Jensen, Alex Katz, William Kentridge, Matvey Levenstein, Nalini Malani, Brice Marden, Chris Martin, Jonas Mekas, Shirin Neshat, Thomas Nozkowski, Lorraine O’Grady, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Joanna Pousette-Dart, Ernesto Pujol, Martin Puryear, Walid Raad, Dorothea Rockburne, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Robert Ryman, Dana Schutz, Richard Serra, Shahzia Sikander, Nancy Spero, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sarah Sze, Rirkrit Tiravanija, James Turrell, Richard Tuttle, Luc Tuymans, Kara Walker, Stanley Whitney, Jack Whitten, Yan Pei-Ming, and Lisa Yuskavage

Special thanks to Furthermore, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, for their support of The Brooklyn Rail.

Nicole Wittenberg

by David Salle, Suzanne Hudson, Jarrett Earnest, Nicole Wittenberg, Devon Zimmerman

The highly anticipated first survey of the work of American painter Nicole Wittenberg

Over the past two decades, Nicole Wittenberg has developed an expressive body of work that includes paintings of landscapes, portraits, and erotica. Best known for her vibrant and energetic mark making, Wittenberg creates seemingly spontaneous images from studies and drawings - oftentimes from life - which she synthesizes into much larger paintings on canvas.

Weaving together painterly gestures across subject matter - some published here for the first time - this debut monograph features essays by the art historian Suzanne Hudson, the curator Devon Zimmerman, and the contemporary painter David Salle, as well as an extended conversation between the artist and writer Jarrett Earnest. These texts create an insightful portrait of Wittenberg as an artist. Presented in a beautiful cloth case showcasing details of one of her floral compositions, this book explores the full range of Wittenberg's artistic vision and represents the most significant publication of her work to date.

The publication of the book coincides with two solo exhibitions of the artist's work, at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Paul Cadmus 49 Drawings

by Jarrett Earnest, Graham Steele

As seen in The New York Times

A lavish portfolio of never-before-seen erotic drawings by celebrated twentieth-century American artist and gay icon, Paul Cadmus

Paul Cadmus entered the art scene in the 1930s with paintings of dream-like urban demi-mondes: roiling tableaux of beatniks, sailors, and prostitutes. Undergirding his work has always been the artist's masterful draftsmanship, seen in hundreds of drawings of nude male models, chief among them his long-time lover and muse, Jon Anderson. Paul Cadmus: 49 Drawings collects these never-before-seen drawings for the first time, presenting a singular body of work that exemplifies Cadmus's classical proficiency, channeled into an obsessive emphasis of his model's erotic zones.

Packaged in a stamped portfolio envelope, this is a landmark collection of queer art by a twentieth-century master, its images complemented by an introduction by Graham Steele that details the significance of Paul Cadmus to his career in the art world, plus an essay by leading queer-art scholar Richard Meyer, as well as a momentous discussion with painters Nash Glynn, Doron Langberg, and Oscar yi Hou, moderated by curator and critic Jarrett Earnest.

This elegant book, sumptuously produced to reflect the eminence of this newly revealed body of work, and the intimacy of its subject matter, represents a rare exposé of a significant body of unknown work from a major twentieth-century artist, and a substantial contribution to the study and legacy of queer art.

Raymond Saunders: Post No Bills

by Richard J. Powell, Jarrett Earnest, Raymond Saunders

Discover Raymond Saunders's dynamic paintings and his extraordinary legacy as an artist and thinker in this first ever monograph.

Saunders’s work brings together his extensive formal training with his own observations and lived experience. His assemblage-style paintings frequently begin with a monochromatic black ground elaborated with white chalk—a pointed reversal of the traditional figure-ground relationship. He subsequently adds a range of other markings, materials, and talismans—from wallpaper to advertisements, rulers to paintbrushes. Expressionistic swaths of paint, minimalist motifs, line drawings, and passages of vibrant color tangle with found objects, signs, and doors collected from his urban environment at home and abroad, creating unexpected visual rhymes and resonances that reward careful and sustained looking. At once deliberately constructed and improvisatory, didactic and deeply felt, these richly built surfaces conjure a range of themes, allowing for a vast and nuanced multiplicity of meanings.

A record of a two-part exhibition presented at David Zwirner and Andrew Kreps Gallery in 2024, this publication considers Saunders’s ability to infuse his work with social relevance and commentary. Featured texts include an introduction by curator Ebony L. Haynes and a conversation between Haynes and Studio Museum of Harlem director Thelma Golden about her multidecade engagement with Saunders’s artwork and writing. A facsimile of Saunders's self-published pamphlet from 1967, Black Is a Color—his vital essay on the creative expression of the artist, which continues to spark cultural conversation nearly five decades after its appearance, is reproduced along with new annotated commentary by art historian Darby English. An essay by Jarrett Earnest offers an in-depth interpretation of two of Saunders’s complex chalkboard works. Also included is a never before published interview from 1980 between the artist and Judith Wilson in which Saunders discusses his multilayered practice. Lastly, a reprint of a pivotal text from 1993 by art historian Richard J. Powell offers a panoramic examination of Saunders’s art from 1968–1993, with a special focus on his iconic painting Dr. Jesus. This robust group of texts and academic considerations offers a compelling exploration of Saunders’s wide-ranging practice and lasting influence.

Sam McKinniss

by Natasha Stagg, Jarrett Earnest

The artist’s debut monograph delves into his vibrant paintings, capturing pop culture icons with wit and pathos.

Drawing inspiration from iconic figures and imagery from popular media, press photos, and other artworks, McKinniss transforms familiar images of bold-faced names—including Leonardo DiCaprio, Michelle Pfeiffer, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Britney Spears, Halle Berry, Joan Didion, Lil Nas X, and Mariah Carey, to name a few—into strikingly original works. By reinterpreting snapshots of celebrities and working with images with an inbuilt cultural power, McKinniss infuses them with a new layer of depth and significance—making them more powerful, expressive, and ambiguous. His portraits are not mere copies but rather captured moments of collective memory, heightened with emotion and drama.

Transitioning from painting friends to internet-sourced imagery, McKinniss taps into emotional wells sublimated within the drama of entertainment, theater, pageantry, presentation, fashion, and glamour in his work. Oscillating between being a fan and an idol, McKinniss illustrates complex roles and identities existing in his art.