Alexander Dumbadze
January 27, 2026

I first met the charming art historian Alexander Dumbadze when he was my TA in a Richard Schiff class at the University of Texas at Austin. In the years since, Dumbadze has produced a focused body of work, including his two books “Bas Jan Ader: Death Is Elsewhere” and the just-published “Jack Goldstein: All Day Night Sky.” Combining biography, traditional art history, and theory, these books are eminently readable portraits of two remarkable people.

Both artists died prematurely—Ader was lost at sea during a transatlantic solo voyage at 33 and Goldstein by his own hand at 57— and both are big, mythic figures in the art world. What happens when the idea of the artist dominates the work that they make, when the myth precedes them and hovers around their art? Both artists were searching for a fundamental truth—Ader by making art that was unmediated and could communicate without representational systems and Goldstein through deep exploration of the possibilities of the representational image.

Dumbadze walks us through Jack Goldstein’s life and times, from his early student days at Chouinard and Cal Arts, to his social circles and his time in New York City, and ultimately to the end of his life in California. We discuss Goldstein’s major bodies of work and his tendentious relationship to artistic mediums. Most of all we talk about Goldstein’s efforts to make an ideal image, something pure that is also a fundamental experience: an unsustainable moment of intensity.

Dumbadze considers the books on Ader and Goldstein to be part of a trilogy of works, and he is currently working on the third and final book in the series: a novel set in the 1970s about a conceptual artist who only makes works in his head. I am very much looking forward to seeing how this book will continue the questions, problems, and possibilities that Dumbadze is dealing with in art history!

Complete playlist below; tracks in yellow were cut for time.

1. The Headmaster Ritual, The Smiths, 1985
   
2. Save It for Later, The English Beat, 1982
   
3. Ceremony, New Order, 1987
   
4. O Superman, Laurie Anderson, 1982
   
5. Uncertain Smile, The The, 1983
   
6. Freak Scene, Dinosaur Jr., 1988
   
7. Death or Glory, The Clash, 1979
   
8. What the World Is Waiting For, The Stone Roses, 1989
   
9. Star Sign    , Teenage Fanclub    , 1991
   
10. Rattlesnakes, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions    , 1984
    
11. Anesthesia, Luna, 1992
    
12. 6’1”, Liz Phair, 1993
    
13. Miss Modular, Stereolab, 1997
    
14. That's Entertainment, The Jam, 1980
    
15. The State I Am In, Belle and Sebastian, 1996
    
16. Sooner Or Later, The Feelies, 1991
    
17. Corona, Minutemen, 1984
    
18. Our Lips Are Sealed, The Go-Go’s, 1981

Alexander Dumbadze is Associate Professor of Art History. He is the author of Bas Jan Ader: Death Is Elsewhere (University of Chicago Press, 2013; paperback 2015) as well as co-editor and co-author of Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013; Korean translation, 2015). He is currently writing Jack Goldstein: All Day Night Sky. His essays and criticism have been published in a variety of national and international publications. A recipient of a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, Dumbadze was a Visiting Professor of Art History at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis in 2012. He is also a co-founder and former president of the Society of Contemporary Art Historians. He teaches courses on contemporary art, theory, and historiography.