Stephen Melville

Stephen Melville is an art historian and critic. He was, with Philip Armstrong and Laura Lisbon, a curator of As Painting: Division and Displacement (Wexner Center for the Arts, 2001).

June 2026Critics Page

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I’ve lately been looking with some friends at William Kentridge’s Six Drawing Lessons (2014), Tom Burr’s Torrington Project (2025), and various writings by Stanley Cavell. Two early Cavell essays that I hadn’t looked at in a long time have particularly struck me.

Tom Burr, Torrington Project (Primary Information, 2025). Left: Tom Burr, Black Sleeves, 2009. Plywood, black stain, paper record sleeves, steel pushpins, 48 × 48 × 2 inches. Middle: Tom Burr, one of the braces used in Tom Burr, Bortolami Gallery, New York, 2023. Steel, 9 × 9 × 72 inches. © Tom Burr. Right: Gordon Hall, Shim (Tom), cast brass, 28 × 1 × 4 inches. © Gordon Hall. Courtesy Primary Information.

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