DOCSLIB.ORG

Ed Ruscha and the Reception of Los Angeles

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ed Ruscha and the Reception of Los Angeles “Second City”: Ed Ruscha and the Reception of Los Angeles Pop* Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/octo/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/0162287053148120/1751200/0162287053148120.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 ALEXANDRA SCHWARTZ Critics greeted Ed Ruscha’s recent exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art with a chorus of near-universal praise.1 Peter Schjeldahl declared in The New Yorker that Ruscha “is one of the four most influential artists to have emerged in the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, and Bruce Nauman,” while Roberta Smith proclaimed in The New York Times, “these shows confirm Mr. Ruscha not only as a first generation Pop artist, but also as a post-Pop innovator on a par with Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke.”2 With these accolades, it became official: Ruscha is hot.3 Both Schjeldahl and Smith presented their assessments of Ruscha’s art historical stature as news, and to a degree, it was: never before had critics offered * My thanks to Ann Temkin, Huey Copeland, Suzanne Hudson, and Tricia Paik for their incisive editorial suggestions; Maria Gough, Alex Potts, Howard Lay, and Ed Dimendberg for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this text; and Lisa Pasquariello for many stimulating discussions about this material. Portions of this essay are drawn from my doctoral dissertation, “Designing Ed Ruscha: The Invention of the Los Angeles Artist, 1960–1980” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2004). 1. These exhibitions were Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha and Ed Ruscha and Photography, on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, from June 24–September 26, 2004. 2. Peter Schjeldahl, “Seeing and Reading: Ed Ruscha at the Whitney,” The New Yorker 80, no. 20 (July 26, 2004), p. 94; Roberta Smith, “Ruscha in Retrospect, With Signs of Heat Beneath California Cool,” New York Times, June 25, 2004, p. E31. 3. In the past five to ten years, Ruscha has experienced something of a “late blooming” on the art market. He has been the subject of five major museum retrospectives in as many years, including Edward Ruscha: Editions, 1959–1999 (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, 1999–2001); Ed Ruscha (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Miami Art Museum; Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 2000–2002); Edward Ruscha: Made in Los Angeles (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2002); Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2004–2005); and Ed Ruscha and Photography (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2004); new books on the artist appear, it seems, almost monthly, including my own Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, by Ed Ruscha, ed. Alexandra Schwartz (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002); Richard Marshall, Ed Ruscha (London: Phaidon Press, 2003); and Pat Poncy, ed., Edward Ruscha, Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume 1, 1958–1970 (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2004); in 2003 one of his 1960s-era paintings fetched over $3.5 million at auction; and in October 2004, he was chosen to be the United States representative to the 2005 Venice Biennale. OCTOBER 111, Winter 2005, pp. 23–43. © 2005 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 24 OCTOBER such unequivocally favorable evaluations of his importance within contemporary artistic production. Yet when Ruscha first came to prominence in the early 1960s, he was in fact celebrated as one of the foremost practitioners of the “L.A. Look,” and his work was featured in many of the earliest Pop art exhibitions.4 At first, critics did not tend to hold his position as a West Coast artist against him; over time, however, this Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/octo/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/0162287053148120/1751200/0162287053148120.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 changed, and he came to be, as Schjeldahl put it, widely “patronized as a Los Angeles—that is, a marginal—artist.”5 His principal detractors were found within the East Coast, especially New York, art establishment, and the 2004 Whitney retrospec- tives marked his first solo New York museum appearances in nearly fifteen years.6 This essay chronicles how, after initially meeting with a degree of success unprecedented among West Coast artists, Ruscha and his L.A. contemporaries were pushed to the margins of contemporary art reception. It focuses on the first major style to emerge in the city in the 1960s, Los Angeles Pop, whose develop- ment was closely followed in the national art press. Although in the early 1960s L.A. Pop artists garnered a good deal of attention from critics, curators, and scholars throughout the world, they were increasingly overlooked in favor of their New York colleagues, who commanded the lion’s share of gallery, museum, and press coverage, and consequently sold more work at higher prices. Only a handful of L.A. artists, Ruscha perhaps most prominent among them, managed eventually to transcend these obstacles. I suggest that this may be explained by the historical critical perception of Ruscha’s work as exemplary of L.A. Pop—a perception that the artist encouraged, to a degree. I also examine Ruscha’s dual role as both a representative of and commentator on L.A. Pop, and consider how this role influenced the trajec- tory of his career. Ferus: An Introduction Peter Plagens maintains that the sixties era in L.A. art in fact began in 1957, with the opening of Ferus Gallery and the birth of the “L.A. Look . [which] provided L.A. with its first claim to international success as a modern art center.”7 4. The term “L.A. Look” was used slightly differently by different critics. In his 1974 history Sunshine Muse: Art on the West Coast, 1945–1970, Peter Plagens offers a general definition: “Just as there was no New York School . there was no L.A. Look. The latter term refers generally to cool, semitechnological, industrially pretty art made in and around Los Angeles in the sixties by Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, Kenneth Price, John McCracken, Peter Alexander, DeWain Valentine, Robert Irwin, and Joe Goode, among others. The patented ‘look’ was elegance and simplicity, and the material was plastic, including polyester resin, which has several attractions: perma- nence (indoors), an aura of difficulty and technical expertise, and a preciousness (when polished) rivaling bronze or marble” ([Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974], pp. 120–21). 5. Schjeldahl, “Seeing and Reading,” p. 94. 6. His only previous New York exhibitions were The Works of Edward Ruscha, a midcareer retrospective (Whitney Museum of American Art, 1982; toured to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Vancouver Art Gallery; San Antonio Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1982–1983) and Edward Ruscha: Los Angeles Apartments, also at the Whitney, 1990. 7. Plagens, Sunshine Muse, p. 117. Ed Ruscha and the Reception of Los Angeles Pop 25 Founded by Edward Kienholz, critic and curator Walter Hopps, and a former furniture salesman, Irving Blum, Ferus started out as a center for Abstract Expressionism and California “Funk,” exhibiting the work of Angelenos such as Kienholz, John Altoon, Billy Al Bengston, Craig Kauffman, Robert Irwin, and Ed Moses. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, Abstract Expressionism Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/octo/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/0162287053148120/1751200/0162287053148120.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 began to lose its hold, due in large part to the wide-scale acceptance—in America as well as Europe—of work by “proto-Pop” artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.8 Though these artists came out of New York, the Pop movement also had roots in Southern California, whose mythic status as the cen- ter of American popular culture—with Hollywood, hot rods, beaches, palm trees, blondes, and suntans—epitomized the Pop environment. Younger artists such as Ruscha, Larry Bell, Bruce Conner, Joe Goode, and Kenneth Price later joined the Ferus stable. As spokesmen for what was commonly labeled their “California cool” image, they became known collectively as the “Ferus Studs.”9 That Ferus became one of the foremost exhibitors of West Coast Pop is hardly surprising given the interests of its founders: Kienholz’s assemblages, with their found materials and references to popular culture, might be called proto- Pop, and Hopps maintained a long-standing interest in Duchamp, Dada, and Surrealism—widely considered Pop’s antecedents.10 Nearly all of the L.A. Pop artists who received the most attention in national museums and magazines during the 1960s were in the gallery’s stable. Ferus gave artists like Ruscha, Bell, Conner, and Price numerous group and solo shows throughout the 1960s; in many ways, Hopps and Blum made these artists’ careers (Kienholz became less involved in the gallery after its first years). But Ferus also played a pivotal role in promoting many East Coast Pop artists. It was one of the first galleries outside New York to exhibit Johns’s work, mounting a groundbreaking show called Johns/Schwitters in September 1960. In July 1962, Ferus exhibited the work of the then-unknown Andy Warhol: generally perceived as the preeminent New York Pop artist, he was first embraced by the L.A. art world—a fact that has been largely overlooked by historians. Along with fellow New Yorkers such as Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Donald Judd, both Johns and Warhol showed frequently at Ferus throughout the 1960s.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Paulacoopergallery.Com
    P A U L A C O O P E R G A L L E R Y FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JENNIFER BARTLETT Grids & Dots 243A Worth Ave, Palm Beach January 16 – February 7, 2021 PALM BEACH—Opening on Saturday, January 16, 2021 in Paula Cooper Gallery’s Palm Beach location is a focused presentation of work by Jennifer Bartlett titled “Grids and Dots.” On view will be five examples of Bartlett’s pioneering steel and enamel plate works, made between 1971 and 2011. Installed in an interior room of the gallery, the presentation is in dialogue with the concurrent exhibition “Sol LeWitt: Cubic Forms,” highlighting both artists’ parallel interest in geometric forms and programmatic strategies as the foundation for complex and exuberant works of art. Bartlett first began making paintings on white enameled, square-cut steel plates in late 1968. The idea was born from her interest in the metal signs found inside New York City subway stations. “They looked like hard paper,” Bartlett explained. “I needed paper that could be cleaned and reworked. I wanted a unit that could go around corners on the wall, stack for shipping. If you made a painting and wanted it to be longer, you could add plates. If you didn’t like the middle you could remove it, clean it, replace it or not.”1 Inspired by LeWitt's application of the grid and serial systems, Bartlett begins with vertical and horizontal lines silkscreened onto the baked enamel surfaces. Using Testors brand enamel paint, she then plots out various dot patterns within the framework, following simple mathematical schemes.
    [Show full text]
  • Why the Whitney's Humanist, Pro-Diversity Biennial Is a Revelation
    Why the Whitney’s Humanist, Pro-Diversity Biennial Is a Revelation Roberta Smith March 16, 2017 Since moving downtown, the Whitney Museum of American Art has grown up, thanks to a larger, dashing new building, more ambitious exhibitions and new responsibilities brought by rising attendance and membership. No surprise, its biennial has grown up, too. Perhaps less expected: So has the art in it. This show’s strength and focus make it doubly important at a time when art, the humanities and the act of thinking itself seem under attack in Washington. The 2017 Biennial, the first held in the expansive Renzo Piano-designed structure on Gan- sevoort Street, is an adult affair: spatially gracious to art and visitors alike, and exceptionally good looking, with an overall mood of easy accessibility. My first thought: It needs a little more edge. Yet this show navigates the museum’s obligations to a broader public and its longtime art-world audience with remarkable success. Organized by Christopher Y. Lew, the Whitney’s associate curator, and Mia Locks, an independent curator, it has some immature inclusions and other letdowns. But once you really start looking, there’s edge all over the place. The show spotlights 63 artists and collectives working at the intersection of the formal and the social, and in this it announces a new chapter of so-called political art — though one already brewing in small museums, galleries and studios. Many of these artists confront such Ameri- can realities as income inequality, homelessness, misogyny, immigration, violence, hatred and biases of race, religion and class.
    [Show full text]
  • The New York Times Review/Art
    FORT GANSEVOORT Review/Art; 3 Museums Collaborate To Sum Up a Decade Roberta Smith May 25, 1990 What happened to American art during the tumultuous, comba?ve 1980's is a large and mul?-faceted subject that will undoubtedly be debated for some ?me. But less than six months into the 90's, one of the first assessments has already arrived, in the form of the messy, provoca?ve exhibi?on ?tled ''The Decade Show: Frameworks of Iden?ty in the 1980's.'' This exhibi?on comes from an unusual collabora?on of three young and very different museums well known for presen?ng alterna?ve views of contemporary art: the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Hispanic Contemporary Art, both in SoHo, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Not sur - prisingly, the curators at these museums have knit their alterna?ve agendas into an alterna?ve overview. ''The Decade Show'' and its thick opinionated catalogue try to shake up any ideas about 80's art that aren't nailed down, and may say as much about art's future as they do about its recent past. The exhibi?on gathers together work by more than 100 creators of pain?ngs, sculptures and installa?on pieces and nearly 40 video and performance ar?sts. It features many collabora?ve efforts, in pain?ngs to poli?cal posters, from Tim Rollins and K.O.S., the Guerrilla Girls, Gran Fury, Group Material and a rela?ve - ly unknown Asian-American ar?sts' collec?ve called Epoxy Art Group.
    [Show full text]
  • ANNUAL REPORT 2013 BOARD of TRUSTEES 5 Letter from the Chair
    BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2 LETTER FROM THE CHAIR 4 A STRATEGIC VISION FOR THE 6 PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART A YEAR AT THE MUSEUM 8 Collecting 10 Exhibiting 20 Learning 30 Connecting and Collaborating 38 Building 48 Conserving 54 Supporting 60 Staffing and Volunteering 70 A CALENDAR OF EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS 75 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 80 COMMIttEES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 86 SUPPORT GROUPS 88 VOLUNTEERS 91 MUSEUM STAFF 94 BOARD OF TRUSTEES TRUSTEES EMERITI TRUSTEES EX OFFICIO OFFICERS Peter A. Benoliel Hon. Tom Corbett Constance H. Williams Jack R Bershad Governor, Commonwealth Chair, Board of Trustees Dr. Luther W. Brady, Jr. of Pennsylvania and Chair of the Executive Committee Helen McCloskey Carabasi Hon. Michael A. Nutter Mayor, City of Philadelphia H. F. (Gerry) Lenfest Hon. William T. Raymond G. Perelman Coleman, Jr. Hon. Darrell L. Clarke Chairs Emeriti Ruth M. Colket President, City Council Edith Robb Dixon Dennis Alter Hannah L. Henderson Timothy Rub Barbara B. Aronson Julian A. Brodsky B. Herbert Lee The George D. Widener Director and Chief David Haas H. F. (Gerry) Lenfest Executive Officer Lynne Honickman Charles E. Mather III TRUSTEES Victoria McNeil Le Vine Donald W. McPhail Gail Harrity Vice Chairs Marta Adelson Joan M. Johnson David William Seltzer Harvey S. Shipley Miller President and Chief Operating Officer Timothy Rub John R. Alchin Kenneth S. Kaiserman* Martha McGeary Snider Theodore T. Newbold The George D. Widener Dennis Alter James Nelson Kise* Marion Stroud Swingle Lisa S. Roberts Charles J. Ingersoll Director and Chief Barbara B. Aronson Berton E. Korman Joan F. Thalheimer Joan S.
    [Show full text]
  • Anri Sala Galerie Chantal Crousel Young, Michael
    Anri Sala Selected Press Galerie Chantal Crousel Young, Michael. « Anri Sala’s last resort: 33rd Kaldor public art project », Art Asia Pacific, October 24, 2017 http://artasiapacific.com/Blog/AnriSalaLastResor33rdKaldorPublicArtProject Galerie Chantal Crousel Young, Michael. « Anri Sala’s last resort: 33rd Kaldor public art project », Art Asia Pacific, October 24, 2017 http://artasiapacific.com/Blog/AnriSalaLastResor33rdKaldorPublicArtProject Galerie Chantal Crousel McDonald, John. « Review: Anri Sala’s The Last Resort ‘an exemplary work of public art », Sydney Morning Herald, October 20, 2017. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/review-anri-salas-the-last-resort-20171016-gz28qw.html Galerie Chantal Crousel Jamart, Christine. « Viva Arte Viva, Vaine Incantation », L’art meme, 73, 3ème trimestre 2017, p.3-5. Galerie Chantal Crousel Jamart, Christine. « Viva Arte Viva, Vaine Incantation », L’art meme, 73, 3ème trimestre 2017, p.3-5. Galerie Chantal Crousel Jamart, Christine. « Viva Arte Viva, Vaine Incantation », L’art meme, 73, 3ème trimestre 2017, p.3-5. Galerie Chantal Crousel Azimi, Roxana, Régnier Philippe. « Christine Macel réenchante la Biennale de Venise », Le Quotidien de l’Art, Numéro1287, Thursday, May 11, 2017, pp.5-9. BIENNALE PAGE LE QUOTIDIEN DE L’ART | JEUDI 11 MAI 2017 NUMÉRO 1287 DE VENISE 05 VIVA ARTE VIVA — Arsenal, Giardini, Venise Du 13 mai au 26 juin Par Roxana Azimi et Philippe Régnier Christine Macel réenchante la Biennale de Venise Peu d’expositions savent donner le sourire et la foi en ces temps troublés. Sans sombrer dans le nihilisme de formes rêches et arides, la Biennale de Venise 2017 conçue par Christine Macel a su remettre le plaisir de l’art au centre.
    [Show full text]
  • Jack Shainman Gallery
    513 WEST 20TH STREET NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10011 TEL: 212.645.1701 FAX: 212.645.8316 JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY EL ANATSUI SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY (BOOKS & EXHIBITION CATALOGUES) 2021 Cervenak, Sarah Jane. Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life, Duke University Press, 2021. Edwards, Jean, Caldwell, Helen, Heaton, Rebecca. Art in the Primary School: Creating Art in the Real and Digital World, Taylor & Francis, 2021. Porter, Charlie. What Artists Wear, Penguin Books Limited, 2021. Seligson, Judith. Gaps in the Creation of Ideas: An Artist’s Book, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021. 2020 Albritton, Ann and Farrelly, Gwen, Art History in a Global Context: Methods, Themes, and Approaches. John Wiley & Sons. 2020. The Art Book. London: Phaidon Press, 2020: p.18, illustrated. Editors, Phaidon. The Art Book, Revised Edition. Phaidon Press, 2020. Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield. Contemporary African Art: Second Edition. 2020. Vogel, Susan M. EL ANATSUI : Art and Life. Prestel Publishing, 2020. Enwezor, Okwui and Okeke-Agulu, Chika. El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale. Prestel Publishing, 2020 Goldberg, Alison. Bottle Tops: The Art of El Anatsui. Lee and Low Books, 2020 Collier, Delinda. Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa. Duke University Press, 2020 2019 Ayim, Nana Oforiatta. Ghana Freedom: Ghana Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition La Biennale Di Venezia. 2019. Editors, Phaidon, and Jenelle Porter. Vitamin T: Threads and Textiles in Contemporary Art. Phaidon Press, 2019. English, Darby, and Charlotte Barat. Among Others. Blackness at MoMA. New York, Museum of Modern Art, 2019: pp.120-121, illustrated. El Anatsui: SeleCteD Bibliography Page 2 Schaffner, Ingrid, and Liz Park. Dispatch : Carnegie International, 57th Edition. Pittsburgh, Pa., Carnegie Museum Of Art, 2019.
    [Show full text]
  • Cindy Sherman
    Candice Breitz Glenn Brown George Condo John Currin Jef Koons Yayoi Kusama Chris Of li Jenny Saville 1 Cindy Sherman Rebecca Warren Lisa Yuskavage Picturing women at the turn of the Curated by 21 Essay by Jo-Ann Conklin st century Ian Alden Russell David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University 1 Foreword Spanning a period of twenty-four years — from 1989 to 2013 — SHE presents a broad- feminism. The same can be said of Glenn Brown. They are both, instead, deeply ranging selection of contemporary representations of women. The exhibition, concerned with painting — the simple and not-so-simple application of pigment to which is drawn from a private collection, includes works by eleven of the most highly canvas. Applying their idiosyncratic and highly identifiable styles to images of acclaimed artists working today. Within these paintings, sculpture, and videos are women, they parse the satirical, the humorous, and the grotesque. both convergences and divergences in style, concept, and intent. Some artists, notably For Jeff Koons, like Condo and Brown, “woman as subject” is secondary to formal Jenny Saville and Cindy Sherman, examine the position of women in society from concerns. His Gazing Ball (Ariadne) is a spectacular sculpture — a juxtaposition an overtly feminist viewpoint. Others, such as Lisa Yuskavage and Rebecca Warren, of a Classical figure reproduced in gleaming white plaster and a deep blue, reflective, wrest control of explicit sexual imagery from the hands of men. Yet others, such as gazing ball. In other works from the Gazing Ball series, Koons combines his gazing George Condo, Glenn Brown, and Jeff Koons, show little to no concern with the politics balls with plaster mailboxes, birdbaths, and snowmen.
    [Show full text]
  • Cindy Sherman
    Cindy Sherman Bibliographie / Bibliography Bücher und Kataloge / Books and catalogues 2019 Moorhouse, P.: ‘Cindy Sherman’, National Portrait Gallery, London. 2018 Hilton, A. et al., ‘Strange Days: Memories of the Future’, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Friedewald, B.: ‘Women Photographers: From Julia Margeret Cameron to Cindy Sherman’, Prestel, New York, USA 2017 Ardaouil, S., Fellrath, T: ‘Ways of Seeing’, Arter Museum, Istanbul. Berne, B., Bonami, F.: ‘Cindy Sherman: Once Upon a Time, 1981-2011’, Mnuchin Gallery, New York. Butler, D. S.: ‘50 Years Highlights’, Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton. Cosulich, S.: ‘Think of this as a Window’, Mutina for Art, Fiorano. Etgar, Y.: ‘The Ends of Collage’, Luxembourg & Dayan, New York. Hoffmann, J.: ‘The ARCADES: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin’, The Jewish Museum, New York and Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Lebart, L.: ‘Les Grands Photographes du XXe Siécle’. Larousse, Paris. Lembke, K., Felicitas Mattheis, L.: ‘Silberglanz. Von der Kunst des Alters’, Landesmuseum Hannover, Hannover. ‘Life Word’, Collección CIAC, A.C. Mexico City. Luckraft, P.: ‘You Are Looking at Something that Never Occurred’, Zabludowicz Collection, London. Manné, J. G.: ‘Unpacking: The Marciano Collection’, Delmonico Books/Prestel, Munich, London, New York. ‘Nude: Masterpieces from Tate,’ Tate and Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, London and Seoul.. Phillips, L.: ‘40 Years New’, New Museum, New York. Van Beirendonck, W.: ‘Powermask – The Power of Masks’, Lannoo Publishers, Tielt, and Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Rotterdam. 2016 Bethenod, M.: ‘Pinault Collection 07’, Pinault Collection, Paris. Berne, B., Sherman, C.: ‘Cindy Sherman’, Hartmann Books, Stuttgart. Berne, B., // Wallace, M., Buttrose, E., Leonard, R.: ‘Cindy Sherman’, QAGOMA, Brisbane.
    [Show full text]
  • The Past, Present, and Futures of Art Criticism
    The Past, Present and Futures of Art Criticism January 14 The central topic A brief introduction, and a few words on today’s topic: what is art criticism? What do we see when we look at works of art? How do we interpret, judge, and contextualize them? A Hyperallergic cartoon: what should art criticism do? And a suggestion from Peter Plagens. The results of a 2002 Columbia School of Journalism survey. My interest in the topic, activity as a critic, and work as a teacher. Early experiments in art criticism, and the birth of a new genre Plato and Aristotle; Giorgio Vasari; Roger de Piles and Jonathan Richardson the Elder. The rise of the French Salon; La Font de Saint-Yenne, and the cancellation of the 1749 Salon. Denis Diderot, and his reviews of the 1765 and 1767 Salons. Diderot on paintings by Jean-Baptiste Grueze and Claude-Joseph Vernet. The growth of daily newspapers, and the feuilleton. Art criticism and modernism Charles Baudelaire, on passion, politics, and poetry; Félix Féneon and Guillaume Apollinaire. Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg – and Jackson Pollock and Frank Stella. Michael Fried, and “Art and Objecthood,” published in 1967. Artforum, founded in 1962, and Rosalind Krauss. Artists enter the fray Allan Kaprow, Donald Judd, and Robert Smithson. Andrea Fraser and Coco Fusco. Especially notable contemporary critics… Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz; Okwui Enwezor, Claire Bishop. And prominent local voices Mary Carole McCauley and Cara Ober. Rebekah Kirkman, Maura Callahan, Alex Oehmke, and Michel Farley. Some thoughts about criticism today… Online criticism: advantages and drawbacks, or difficulties.
    [Show full text]
  • Art for the Plan...Le
    ART & DESIGN Review: Art for the Planet’s Sake at the Venice Biennale By ROBERTA SMITH MAY 15, 2015 VENICE — The world is a mass of intractable ills on which art must shed light. With oceans rising, climates warming, the income gap widening and human rights abuses of every imaginable kind occurring, the very future of the planet — its many futures — hangs in the balance. This is not the time for art as an object of contemplation or delight, much less a market commodity — certainly not in a public exhibition whose chief responsibility is to stimulate debate. That basically is the provocative but also confining message behind “All the World’s Futures,” the lopsided central exhibition at the sprawling 56th Venice Biennale, which runs through Nov. 22. Organized by Okwui Enwezor, a veteran curator of international undertakings like this, “All the World’s Futures” brings out into the open a central preoccupation of the moment, namely the belief that art is not doing its job unless it has loud and clear social concerns, a position whose popularity has made “social practice” the latest new thing to be taught in art schools. In its single-mindedness “All the World’s Futures” echoes its 2013 predecessor, Massimiliano Gioni’s “The Encyclopedic Palace,” but from the opposite direction. More uplifting, Mr. Gioni’s effort opened modernist art history to all kinds of self-taught and outsider artists, expanding its origins to urgent expressions from around the world, somewhat at the cost of contemporary art. Mr. Enwezor is less interested in artistic urgency than in the urgent state of the world itself.
    [Show full text]
  • CINDY SHERMAN Born 1954 in New Jersey
    CINDY SHERMAN Born 1954 in New Jersey. Lives an works in New York. EDUCATION 1976 B.A. State University College at Buffalo, NY SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2011 Cindy Sherman: Works from Friends of the Bruce Museum, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT 2010 Untitled Film Stills, National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík 2009 Gagosian Gallery, Rome Sprüth Magers, Berlin 2008 Metro Pictures, New York (and 1980 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1995,1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006) (cat.) History Portraits, Skarstedt Gallery, NY (and 2003) 2006 Jeu de Paume, Paris; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria; Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2006-2007) (cat.) 2005 Spruth Magers, Munich (and 2000) Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York Cindy Sherman: Working Girl, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (cat.) 2004 The Unseen Cindy Sherman - Early Transformations 1975/1976, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ (cat.) Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, Germany (cat.) 2003 Serpentine Gallery, London; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2003-2004) 2000 Hasselblad Center, Goteburg, Sweden Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles 1997 Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, MOMA, NY Cindy Sherman: A Selection From the Eli Broad Foundation’s Collection, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela (cat.) Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague; capc Musée, Bordeaux; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1997-2000) Museum Ludwig, Cologne 1996 Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Sala de Exposiciones REKALDE, Bilbao; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (cat.) Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan; Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (cat.) Metamorphosis: Cindy Sherman Photographs, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland 1995 Directions: Cindy Sherman-Film Stills, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
    [Show full text]
  • 150 a Tremendous Success").2
    150 FIG.4.1 Installation view, Don Judd, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 27 FebruarY-24 March 1968 Curator, William C. Agee THE OPENING OF OONALD JUDD'S solo exhibition at catalogue raisonn. designation Untitled rOSS 79] [fig. 4.3]), the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1968 sealed his "As an object, the box was very much there ... Its. whole reputation as a central figure in contemporary art. William purpose seemed to be the declaration of some blunt quid­ C. Agee, the curator, had packed Judd's sheet-metal sculp­ dityand nothing more."'ln the years since, Judd's works tures fairly tightly into what at least one critic described as have likewise appeared "blunt, unambiguous," "completely a warehouselike installation,and the tidy right angles and present," "just existing," and "simply 'there.' "5 Each sculp­ repetitive modularity of the works made a neat match to ture has asserted itself as· "simply another thing in the world the stone tiles and concrete ceUing coffers of the museum's of things."'ln the 1967 essay "Art andObjecthood," which two-year-old Marcel Breuer building (fig. 4.1).' Sitting remains the single most influential account of Minimalism, brightly in the middle of the space, Untitled (OSS 128) (fig. Michael Fried characterized Judd's work (together with that 4.2) exemplified the overall appearance of the exhibition: of Robert Morris and others) as a "literalist art" that insisted a shiny rectangle of amber Plexiglas with a thin and hollow on its own occupation of ordinary space and time? By the stainless.-steel core.
    [Show full text]