SELECTED PUBLICATIONS BY KEVIN MELCHIONNE
"Acquired Taste," Contemporary Aesthetics, Vol 5 (2007), www.contempaesthetics.org. Describes acquired taste as a form of self-deception with potentially happy consequences. Discusses the ways acquired taste can also distort aesthetic life.
“Why Artists Starve,” Philosophy and Literature, Vol 31, No. 1, April 2007. Interpretation of contemporary art in the light of Franz Kafka's story, "A Hunger Artist."
"Living in Glass Houses: Decoration, Neatness and the Art of Domesticity," INTIMUS: Interior Design Theory Reader, edited by Mark Taylor and Julieanna Preston, Wiley, 2006. Also forthcoming in The Aesthetics of the Human Environment, edited by Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant, Broadview Press, 2007. Originally published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Special Issue on Environmental Aesthetics, Vol. 56, No. 2, spring 1998. Discusses how interior decoration, cleaning and the ordinary process of inhabiting domestic space may be seen as artistic practices.
“Front Yards” The Environment and the Arts, edited by Arnold Berleant, Ashgate Press, 2002. Offers a new interpretation of the suburban front yard as a genre of gardening art.
“Martin Puryear’s Cane Project,” exhibition essay, Temple Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, November 2001. Interpretation of Puryear’s illustrations for Jean Toomer’s classic Cane.
“Morris in Mexico,” Copper, Stone & Fire: James Metcalf, Ana Pellicer and the Artisans of Santa Clara del Cobre, Temple Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, September 2000. Links the practice of Metcalf and Pellicer to William Morris’s political understanding of artisanal practice.
"The Aesthetics of Collecting," Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 23, 1999. Describes the ways in which collecting may be seen as an artistic practice.
“Lost Tribes and Aesthetic Adventures,” exhibition essay for Lost Tribes and Aesthetic Adventures: The Picture Stores of Ben Katchor, Temple Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, October 1999. Critical appreciation of the MacArthur Award winning comic book artist.
"Of Bookworms and Busybees: Cultural Theory in the Age of Do-It-Yourselfing," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 57, No. 2, spring 1999. Argues that the leading models of cultural practice in Cultural Studies fail to account for quasi-artisanal consumer practices like do-it-yourselfing.
"Artistic Dropouts," Aesthetics: The Big Questions, edited by Carolyn Korsmeyer, Blackwell, 1998. An examination of the reasons why adolescents lose interest in fine art and the practices in which they eventually invest aesthetic energy.
"Review of Christopher Reed's Not at Home: The Suppression of the Domestic in Modern Art and Architecture," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 55, No. 4, fall 1997
"Re-Thinking Site-Specificity in Public Art: Some Critical and Philosophical Problems," Art Criticism, Vol. 12, No. 2, fall 1998. Provides a taxonomy of site-specific qualities and argues against the view that site-specific works of art can not be moved without being destroyed.
"Review of Werner Muensterberger's Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives," Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 1996
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