Blake Oetting

PhD Candidate

Areas of interest: Modern and Contemporary Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and Institutional Critique from the 1960s onward, theories of artistic labor, the politics of identity.

Blake Oetting’s dissertation traces the development of Institutional Critique practices in the 1980s and 1990s. This project has received support from the Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Rauschenberg Foundations. His recent and forth-coming writing appears in Oxford Art Journal, Art Journal, Criticism, Nka, Artforum, Texte Zur Kunst, Flash Art, BOMB, November, caa.reviews, and exhibition catalogs for Renée Green, Hernan Bas, and Jean Cocteau. He has curated “Jean Cocteau: The Juggler’s Revenge” at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection with Kenneth Silver (2024) as well as shows at Helena Anrather (2021) and 80WSE (2020) in New York. In the 2023-2024 academic year, he was a Critical Studies participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program, and in 2020 was part of the Mellon-Marron Research Consortium at the Museum of Modern Art. He is currently working on an edited volume about Tom Burr, which will be published by Primary Information in Fall 2025.