Gary Indiana, the acid-tongued art critic and novelist who explored dark themes in his fiction, has died at 74, Frieze reports.

Indiana was born Gary Hoisington in Derry, New Hampshire, and lived in California before relocating to New York City in the 1970s. He was involved in the city’s avant-garde theater scene before becoming the art critic for the Village Voice in 1985; he was known for his often acerbic takes on popular art, which incorporated cultural criticism of America in the Reagan era.

He published his first book, the story collection Scar Tissue, in 1987. Two years later, his first novel, Horse Crazy, was released; the book was set in a New York arts scene reeling from the AIDS crisis.

He would go on to write more than 20 books, including the novels Gone Tomorrow, Rent Boy, and Resentment, and works of nonfiction such as Let It Bleed, Utopia’s Debris, and I Can Give You Anything but Love.

Indiana’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On the platform X, journalist Adriane Quinlan wrote, “Gary Indiana was a stylist of the highest order, with a slippery feel for sounds of words and a trust in the odd image that floated toward him, out of place until he trapped it.”

And writer Andrew Russeth posted, “RIP Gary Indiana, one of the greatest to ever stalk the galleries as a weekly art critic. Acerbic, yes, but also freewheeling and idiosyncratic. He took it seriously, he had fun, and then he got out. A model.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.