Yve-Alain Bois is an historian

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 and critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

 of modern art

Modern art

Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

. Yve-Alain Bois was born on April 16, 1952 in Constantine, Algeria

Constantine, Algeria

Constantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the capital of the same-named French département until 1962. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, on the banks of Rhumel river...

.

Education

Bois received an M.A.

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

École pratique des hautes études

The École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 for work on El Lissitzky's typography, and a Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...

for work on Lissitzky's and Malevich's conceptions of space. His advisor was Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...

.

Academic career

Bois is a Professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at European Graduate School

European Graduate School

The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...

 and in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, in the chair inaugurated by Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography...

 and formerly held by Millard Meiss, Irving Lavin, and Kirk Varnedoe

Kirk Varnedoe

John Kirk Train Varnedoe was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia and was an American art historian and writer, a Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a noted curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.-Life:He studied...

. Previously, he served on the faculty at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Centre national de la recherche scientifique

The National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....

.

Writing

Bois has written books or major articles on canonical artists of European modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 including Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

, Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, Piet Mondrian, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician, born of ethnic Polish parents. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.-Early life:...

, Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, painter and sculptor. Born in Davos, Switzerland, Sophie Täuber began her art studies in her homeland, at the School of Applied Arts in St. Gallen...

, and of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 postwar art including Barnett Newman

Barnett Newman

Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...

, Ad Reinhardt

Ad Reinhardt

Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...

, Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly

Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...

, Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...

, Richard Serra

Richard Serra

Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...

, Robert Ryman

Robert Ryman

Robert Ryman is an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He is best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lives and works in New York.-Early life and career:...

, Wladyslaw Strzeminski

Wladyslaw Strzeminski

Wladyslaw Strzeminski was a Polish avant-garde painter of international renown.During the 1920s he formulated his theory of Unism . His Unistic paintings inspired the unistic musical compositions of the Polish composer Zygmunt Krauze. He is an author of a revolutionary book titled "The theory of...

, Katarzyna Kobro

Katarzyna Kobro

Katarzyna Kobro was a Polish sculptor of Latvian origin. She studied at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Drawing, the second Free Workshops , Moscow, 1917-20. In 1920 she moved to Smolensk, and in 1921 she married WLADYSLAW STRZEMINSKI. In 1920-22 she was associated with the Vitebsk-based...

, and Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines...

.

He is an editor of the journal October

October (journal)

October is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in contemporary art, criticism, and theory, published by the MIT Press.-History:...

.

Articles and Reviews by Bois

• "Whose Formalism?" Art Bulletin, Mar. 1996 European Graduate School
  European Graduate School
  The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
  
  
• "Whose Formalism?" alternate version, findarticles.com
• Review of Tony Smith retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Artforum, Nov. 1998
• Review of "Supports/Surfaces" exhibition at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Artforum, Dec. 1998
• Bois and Linda Nochlin discuss the Matisse and Picasso exhibition, Artforum, Feb. 1999 (see also Linda Nochlin
  Linda Nochlin
  Linda Nochlin is an American art historian, university professor and writer. She is considered to be a leader in feminist art history studies. She is best known as a proponent of the question "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?"...
  
  )
• Review of Barnett Newman retrospective, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Artforum, Mar. 2002
• "Back to the Future," review of eight books on Malevich, in Bookforum winter 2003
• "The Mourning After," panel discussion on painting, Artforum, Mar. 2003
• On Fred Sandback, Artforum, Oct. 2003
• Letter to the New York Times protesting the tone of the Jacques Derrida obituary written by "a Jonathan Kandell," Oct. 10, 2004
• Comment by Bois on discussion of Art Since 1900 reviews, Iconoduel May 8, 2005
• "Tough Love," on Hubert Damisch, in Oxford Art Journal vol. 28, no. 2 (2005)
• Interview with Yve-Alain Bois for Folha de Sao Paulo, Caderno Mais!, 2005
• MIT Press: list of books and articles by Bois
• All About Yve: An Interview with Yve-Alain Bois (1995)

Reviews of Bois

• Michael Leja, "Formalism Redivivus?" review of Painting As Model in Art in America Mar. 1992, pp. 35–39.
• Arthur Danto, review of Painting as Model, in Art Journal, vol. 51, pp. 95–97.
• Stephen Melville, "Matter, Model and Modernism," in Art History vol. 15, no. 3 (Sept. 1992), pp. 387–391.
• Paul Overy, "'Here-I-Am-Again-Piet': A Mondrian for the Nineties" in Art History, vol. 18, no. 4 (Dec. 1995), pp. 584–605.
• Jacob Weisberg, on the 'Matisse/Picasso' split in everyday life, in Slate, Mar. 6, 1999.
• Pepe Karmel, "The October Century," review of Art Since 1900, in Art in America, Nov. 2005.
• Harper Montgomery, annotation of "Painting: The Task of Mourning" from www.chicagoschoolmediatheory.net

About Bois

• Yve-Alain Bois - Official Faculty page at European Graduate School
  European Graduate School
  The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
  
  (Bio / Lectures / Bibliography)
• "Art Historian Yve-Alain Bois joins the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study," press release, Jan. 7, 2005.
• "From Art to Barthes and Back Again," The Harvard Crimson, Sept. 19, 1991
• Google cache of the Vrai-Faux Passeport: "Art Since 1900" roundtable transcript