David Levi Strauss

David Levi Strauss (born March 10, 1953 in Junction City, Kansas) is an internationally known poet, essayist, art and cultural critic, and educator from the United States.

He is the author of a book of poetry, four books of essays, and numerous monographs and catalogues on artists. Since 2007, he has been Chair of the graduate program in Art Writing (formerly Art Criticism & Writing) at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He also taught at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College from 2001-2005, and since 2002 he has continued to teach in the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard.

Strauss’ principal subject in his books of essays has been the fertile and always changing relation between aesthetics and politics. He has been called “the undisputed champion of literary art writing,” and writer Luc Sante called him “photography’s troubled conscience.”

Strauss’ critiques and theories about the role and influence of art and photography on society are frequently cited in the works of other contemporary writers and critics.

In his introduction to Strauss’ book Between the Eyes, John Berger wrote, “Strauss, who is a poet and storyteller as well as being a renowned commentator on photography (I reject the designation critic) looks at images very hard . . . and comes face-to-face with the unexplained. Again and again. The unexplained that he encounters has only little to do with the mystery of art and everything to do with the mystery of countless lives being lived.” And Arthur Danto wrote, “David Levi Strauss is an art critic of exceptional originality and depth. I can think of none in this field I would rank ahead of him in terms of his knowledge, his seriousness, his adventure, and the power of his writing.”

Strauss received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003-04, and the Infinity Award for Writing from the International Center of Photography in 2007. The selection committee for the latter wrote, “His special perspective on ways of seeing has shaped our understanding of the changing nature of visual media.”

David Levi Strauss was born in Junction City, Kansas in 1953, and grew up just down the road in Chapman, where his grandfather was a blacksmith and his father a mechanic. His mother, Viola Lee, worked as a secretary for the local school district.

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