Focal Points: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

First released in 2024, Focal Points is a book series of essays, articles and reviews by acclaimed curator and critic Robert Storr. Expertly edited by art historian and curator Francesca Pietropaolo, and richly illustrated, it lends Storr’s illuminating insights into an artist’s practice and way of thinking across recent decades. Brilliantly scholarly, accessible and engaging, Focal Points offers fresh interpretations of the varied territory of modern and contemporary art.

This third volume grapples with one of the most critical topics at the heart of culture in the United States: racial division. In the essay, originally produced in 1994 when Storr lived in the diverse neighborhood of Flatbush, Brooklyn and worked as a curator in the then predominantly white, male world of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the author vividly describes the role of the modern art museum and multiculturalism, and analyses issues of identity and representation explored in the works of a range of artists including David Hammons, Byron Kim, Glenn Ligon and Adrian Piper, among others.

To coincide with the publication of the first three volumes, a new film has been released by HENI Talks, featuring Robert Storr, in conversation with Norwich-based art writer and editor Aimee Dawson. Discussing all three volumes, sharing his illuminating insights, the author discusses the artist-critic relationship, the commitment not to rewrite the back catalogue and to a continually evolving point of view in "the spirit of a staircase". Watch the interview here.