Internationally acclaimed art critic and former UNLV faculty member Dave Hickey returns to UNLV at 7 p.m. Dec. 5 and 12 for two very special lectures in the UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum auditorium. 

Hickey has written for such publications as Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many others. In 2001, he was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship — the so-called "genius grant" — while a professor in the UNLV department of art. 

He is known for his arguments against academicism and in favor of the effects of rough-and-tumble free markets on art. His critical essays have been published in two volumes: The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) and Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (1997). In 2009, Hickey published a revised and updated version of The Invisible Dragon, adding an introduction that addressed changes in the art world since the book's original publication, as well as a new concluding essay.

"I write love songs for people who live in a democracy," he has said.

Profiles of Hickey have appeared in Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Economist, and Flaunt, among other publications. Interviews with Hickey have been published in the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, New Art Examiner, Public Events, The Art Newspaper and other magazines. He has been interviewed several times on topics such as art and Las Vegas by the BBC, PBS, and National Public Radio.