Alex Jovanovich

Alex Jovanovich (born 1975) is an American artist, writer, and art critic. He is a senior editor at Artforum, where he has written art criticism, reviews, and artist portfolios since 2015. Quotes On art, poetry, and the unknowable For most of my life, I had relegated poetry to this sort of moribund, romantic ghetto. Anything that smacked of sincerity, tenderness, or emotionality was off-limits, and poetry seemed immersed in all of that. The art I love most offers us these kinds of dwellings. You read a poem and you climb into a kind of hut, so to speak, and that hut is right there, between knowable things and unknowable things. For a little while, a great piece of art lets those two things coexist and lets you stay there as long as you can look at it or as long as you can read it. But, of course, no one gets to stay. One can hardly bear it. In conversation with Dan Beachy-Quick, Whitney Biennial 2014 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2014), pp. 357–358. I believe in things we cannot explain. I have an abiding respect for mystery. Heather Saunders, "Alex Jovanovich", Cleveland Museum of Art, April 17, 2018. On love and fear You see a lot of people looking for absolution in yoga class, wearing fucking crystals around their necks, or going on diets. The kind of fear that the Puritans knew when they stared into the shadow of that Old Testament God—frankly, it's beautiful and alive and terrifying. It's a profound love entwined with profound fear and profound purpose. It's something about making this life count. If we're looking for such an easy form of self-affirmation, then as a culture we know nothing of actual fear, existential fear, fear that keeps us aligned with that oblivion that is the counterpoint of genuine love. The only way to do it properly is to understand that love is some dwelling at the other edge of oblivion. In conversation with Dan Beachy-Quick, Whitney Biennial 2014 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2014), pp. 357–358. On camp, decadence, and queer taste Though most people think of camp as a mincing pink beast in marabou feathers, I like to imagine it as a glittering black widow with diamond fangs, a supple creature that threatens to fatally upend the straight and self-serious aspects of our culture. Review of "Camp: Notes on Fashion" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; "Camp: Notes on Fashion", Artforum, May 1, 2019. Profane notions regarding old-school faggery, including theatricality, opulence, and camp are in fact among the most sacred, vaporizing all pretenses to normativity in favor of perversity, ostentation, and rabid originality. Review of Parker Gallery; "Joseph Holtzman", Artforum, March 2021. Unfortunately, meticulously crafted objects that are precious, nostalgic, and unabashedly fey have historically received short shrift in the art world. Portfolio introduction; "Portfolio: Philip Van Aver", Artforum, Summer 2019. On queerness and outsiders Queers have always been treated as castoffs, so it makes sense that so many of us, historically, have found solace and communion in cast-off things. Portfolio introduction; "Portfolio: Agosto Machado", Artforum, September 2025. On wit Quick, keen, caustic—wit is the instrument that cuts through the torpor of bad faith, overweening sincerity, and shit thinking. At this benighted time in history, when the kudzu of stupidity and mendacity is choking out every last beam of light, reading these works reminds us to keep our wits sharp, sparkling, and more than a bit lethal. It's a dumb, dark world out there. "Artforum Dossier: Wit", Artforum, February 19, 2026. On the body Being roughly 320 pounds and a little less than six feet tall, with a fifty-inch waist, I am usually the fattest person in any room. With those stats, how could I not be? Fat people are intimately familiar with anger, whether it's directed at themselves or at a world that can barely stand to look at them. But when properly harnessed, the feeling can be a luminous, transformative force—both humanizing and galvanizing. Openings feature; "Openings: Iiu Susiraja", Artforum, February 2022. A pair of hairy, pendulous tits and a huge belly marred by stretch marks, drooping skin, fresh bruises, and old wounds: This is a general yet reasonably accurate description of an obese, middle-aged physique—one that belongs to me, a gay man. Review of Denny Dimin Gallery; "Clarity Haynes", Artforum, April 2020. On sex and the erotic There is nothing more exhilarating than being a pervert. Portfolio introduction; "Alex Jovanovich introduces a portfolio by Sal Salandra", Artforum, March 2024. Majoli's pictures feel like transmissions from the afterlife, offering up a heaven of dungeons, slings, and piss parties, where every dimension of gay sex and desire is embraced, exalted—blessed into eternity. He is healthy, strong, gorgeous, and full of promise—Saint Sebastian before his arrows, an innocent before the fall. Review of Galerie Buchholz; "Monica Majoli", Artforum, February 2020. This curvaceous femme fatale takes up extra space without a whiff of apology; each one of her massive legs rests upon its own plush stool like a plump aristocratic pet. Harukawa's role-reversal erotica offers up a joyously defiant kick to the sad stinking balls of heterosexist orthodoxy and vanilla hegemony. Review of ATM Gallery; "Namio Harukawa", Artforum, April 2022. Birkbeck stares right at the viewer as his group of sucklings greedily eat, grope, and fuck. He looks surprised—not because of what's happening, of course, but because you're just standing there and not joining in. Review of "Scenes on the Move" at Situations; "Raynes E. Birkbeck", Artforum, November 2019. On trash and the discarded There's always a lot of junk in galleries. But here, the garbage is pure gold. Jernigan reminds us that trash is just as democratizing—the same strain of commercial refuse can appear anywhere in this world, from a sleepy college town to a Mexican state that is home to ancient Mayan ruins. Critics' pick on Candy Jernigan at Greene Naftali Gallery; "Candy Jernigan", Artforum, June 2019. On looking at art You feel the inexplicably greasy buttons of an old school uniform and are suddenly filled with rage. You fondly recall the snaps on a pair of jeans that were excitedly unfastened during your first sexual encounter. And you surely tallied the pearly rosettes on your mother's favorite blouse before the lid of her casket was unceremoniously lowered. Portfolio introduction; "Button artist extraordinaire Beau McCall", Artforum, January 2026. Looking at Philip Van Aver's exquisite gouache-and-ink paintings—tiny paper masterpieces no bigger than a valentine, yet filled with more love hours than can ever be repaid—I understand this failure of spirit in the presence of beauty. Portfolio introduction; "Portfolio: Philip Van Aver", Artforum, Summer 2019. Jacoby's sculptures look like nightmare hospital equipment (dialyzers, glaucoma machines) unearthed from some Cronenbergian version of the former Yugoslavia. On Cooper Jacoby; "Opening Day: Alex Jovanovich's Whitney Biennial Standouts", Artforum, March 8, 2026. On power and politics Trump is a travesty of power and virility, a deep-discount Übermensch who rose from the most abysmal of expectations. His world is a heterosexual hell, populated by homely Ice Storm–era swingers, middle-class cretins, and the terminally clueless. It seems that Currin's brand of transgression has grown into something banal, inane—what once spit hot venom now only passes gas, and weakly. Review of "Memorial" at Gagosian; "John Currin", Artforum, January 2022. Sad, strange, dull, expensive—these are the words that immediately came to mind when I first walked through an Erewhon. The din was often unsettling. It made me imagine what the hordes assembled around the guillotine during the Reign of Terror must've sounded like: screams of elation, screams of devastation. They should disappear into the background, like helpful little ghosts. What a funny irony—to be swathed in recherché jewelry and clothes that probably cost more than most middle-class homes, dying for a sandwich. By the time I left, weary and weirded out, I was dying for one, too. "Smells Like Fete: The Anticlimactic Glamour of the 2026 Met Gala", Artforum, May 27, 2026. On death, memory, and mourning I think our culture's forgotten how to mourn, since we're so terrified of death and reflection. Heather Saunders, "Alex Jovanovich", Cleveland Museum of Art, April 17, 2018. Death is met by sweetness and light in the ebullient, ethereal work of Agatha Wojciechowsky. Review of "Spirits Among Us" at Andrew Edlin Gallery; "Agatha Wojciechowsky", Artforum, November 2021. Crepuscular, cancerous, unclean: Judy Fox's eerie, life-size effigy of a dead Snow White, 2007, is nothing like Disney's apple-cheeked version of the tortured young blueblood. Fox's is grim—authentically Grimm. Review of "Garden" at Nancy Hoffman Gallery; "Judy Fox", Artforum, Summer 2019. Covert is a kind of noble gleaner for these unsettling end-times, a collector of all those brittle leaves that fell from Earth's once mighty redwoods. Maybe one day, when the planet's a charred and fallow husk, a lone soul will come across a painting by Covert in a dilapidated museum with the words BETTE DAVIS emblazoned across it. This person, not knowing who she was, will say her name aloud, perhaps with some confusion, bringing the actress back to life for just a few seconds. It's an oddly comforting thought. On the art of Scott Covert; "To Die For", Artforum, April 2023. Even in death, the angelic Nozkowski continues to give us life. Review of Pace; "Thomas Nozkowski", Artforum, December 2021. On kindness and hope Some hearts miraculously endure. Agosto Machado—artist, activist, thespian, muse, historian, raconteur, and perennial fashion plate—is one of them. Portfolio introduction; "Portfolio: Agosto Machado", Artforum, September 2025. This past year was bad. And the next four, I fear, will be hideous. Grace is going to be in perilously short supply—do what you can to preserve yours so that it may be shared with others. What was once a struggling flame is fast becoming an ember. But if you try to keep burning, then so will I. "Editors' Picks", Artforum, December 30, 2024. External links Category:1975 births Category:Living people