Maurice Berger, art and cultural historian and critic, has died. In a tweet, fellow critic Jerry Saltz, announced the news, attributing Berger’s death to COVID-19.
Berger completed his undergraduate studies at Hunter College and undertook a PhD in art history and critical theory at the City University of New York. He wrote extensively on art and culture particularly in their relation to the portrayals of race relations in the US. His 1999 book White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness, frames the politics of race through his own experience growing up as a Jewish boy in a predominantly African American and Puerto Rican Lower East Side neighbourhood in New York during the sixties. He also contributed to publications such as Artforum, Art in America, New York Times and Village Voice. Berger was the recipient of the 2014 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation ArtsWriters Grant and the 2018 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for his Race Stories column for NYT. As a curator, he organised exhibitions of the works of artists such as Adrian Piper and Fred Wilson.
Most recently he was research professor and chief curator at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
24 March 2020
