ARTIST-RUN GALLERIES IN NEW YORK CITY Inventing 1952–1965 Downtown JANUARY 10–APRIL 1, 2017

Grey Gazette, Vol. 16, No. 1 · Winter 2017 · Grey Art Gallery New York University 100 Washington Square East, NYC

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 1 12/13/16 2:15 PM Danny Lyon, 79 Park Place, from the series The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, 1967. Courtesy the photographer and Magnum Photos

Aldo Tambellini, We Are the Primitives of a New Era, from the Manifesto series, c. 1961. JOIN THE CONVERSATION @NYUGrey InventingDowntown # Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, Massachusetts

This issue of the Grey Gazette is funded by the Oded Halahmy Endowment for the Arts; the Boris Lurie Art Foundation; the Foundation for the Arts. Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; the Art Dealers Association Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 is organized by the Grey Foundation; Ann Hatch; Arne and Milly Glimcher; The Cowles Art Gallery, New York University, and curated by Melissa Charitable Trust; and the Japan Foundation. The publication Rachleff. Its presentation is made possible in part by the is supported by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art; the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Additional support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Grey Art Gallery’s Director’s Circle, Inter/National Council, and Visual Arts; the S. & J. Lurje Memorial Foundation; the National Friends; and the Abby Weed Grey Trust.

GREY GAZETTE, VOL. 16, NO. 1, WINTER 2017 · PUBLISHED BY THE GREY ART GALLERY, NYU · 100 WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST, NYC 10003 · TEL. 212/998-6780, FAX 212/995-4024 E-MAIL: [email protected] · GREYARTGALLERY.NYU.EDU

EDITOR: LUCY OAKLEY. DESIGNER: LAURA LINDGREN. PRODUCTION MANAGER: ALLY MINTZ

COVER: John Cohen, Red Grooms transporting artwork to Reuben Gallery, New York, 1960 (detail). Courtesy the photographer and L. Parker Stephenson, New York. © John Cohen

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 2 12/16/16 8:59 AM Introduction Between the apex of Abstract Expressionism and significant artist-run projects, 112 CHAMBERS the rise of Pop Art and Minimalism, the New York STREET and 79 PARK PLACE, which occupied art scene was transformed by artist-run galleries. different conceptual terrains, embraced a Inventing Downtown presents works from fourteen wide range of media, and shared an interest of these crucibles of experimentation, highlighting in exploring temporality and geo-spatial artists’ efforts to create new exhibition venues for dimensions. Politics as Practice includes four innovative works of art—ranging from abstract groups: MARCH GROUP, JUDSON CHURCH’S HALL and figurative painting, assemblage, sculpture, and OF ISSUES, THE CENTER, and SPIRAL GROUP, which works on paper to groundbreaking installations examined the viability of politics as a subject and performances. for art and channeled a new sense of social urgency in addressing Cold War politics, the civil rights movement, and the legacy of World War II, among other concerns. Finally, Defining Downtown looks at the GREEN GALLERY, which played a decisive role in bringing downtown uptown and fostering the rise of Pop and Minimalism. Its program, however, resulted in the narrowing of aesthetic Aldo Tambellini, We Are the Primitives of a New Era, from the Manifesto series, c. 1961. possibilities and the marginalization of Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, Massachusetts many artists. Inventing Downtown proposes viewing these Artist-run galleries shaped American art Endowment for the Arts; the Boris Lurie Art Foundation; the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; the Art Dealers Association fourteen galleries via five thematic groupings. irreversibly. After 1965, New York’s uptown and Foundation; Ann Hatch; Arne and Milly Glimcher; The Cowles Leaving Midtown focuses on three Tenth Street downtown art scenes increasingly diverged, Charitable Trust; and the Japan Foundation. The publication galleries which adopted a cooperative business which led to the flowering of nonprofit downtown is supported by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the structure where expenses were shared among alternative spaces. Although more than half a J.M. Kaplan Fund. Additional support is provided by the Grey Art Gallery’s Director’s Circle, Inter/National Council, and elected members: TANAGER GALLERY, HANSA GALLERY, century has passed since the era of Inventing Friends; and the Abby Weed Grey Trust. and BRATA GALLERY. City as Muse features four Downtown, many of the issues mined in the ventures that did not adopt the co-op model: CITY exhibition still resonate in today’s art world— GREY GAZETTE, VOL. 16, NO. 1, WINTER 2017 · PUBLISHED BY THE GREY ART GALLERY, NYU · 100 WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST, NYC 10003 · TEL. 212/998-6780, FAX 212/995-4024 GALLERY, REUBEN GALLERY, DELANCEY STREET MUSEUM, split as it is between the booming commercial E-MAIL: [email protected] · GREYARTGALLERY.NYU.EDU and JUDSON GALLERY. They are best known for market for contemporary art and ever more EDITOR: LUCY OAKLEY. DESIGNER: LAURA LINDGREN. PRODUCTION MANAGER: ALLY MINTZ creating dynamic installations and pioneering pluralistic models of artistic production,

COVER: John Cohen, Red Grooms transporting artwork to Reuben Gallery, New York, 1960 (detail). Courtesy the photographer and L. Parker Stephenson, New York performances. Space and Time investigates two promotion, and display.

1

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 1 12/13/16 2:15 PM LEAVING MIDTOWN examines three pioneering cooperative galleries on or near East Tenth Street between Third and Fourth Avenues. Located in storefronts, these co-ops split expenses and administrative duties among elected members. Tanager Gallery, known for its strong curatorial program, presented both better-established and emerging artists. Some of Hansa Gallery’s artists tested new aesthetic paradigms—incorporating found objects into their artworks—while others continued to pursue figuration. Brata Gallery artists moved away from the emotive gestures of Abstract Expressionism toward hard-edge geometrical compositions.

TANAGER GALLERY 51 East Fourth Street (May 1952–March 1953) installations. Inspired by 90 East Tenth Street (April 1953–June 1962) Post-Impressionist painter Among the first of the many artist-run galleries, Tanager maintained Pierre Bonnard, Wolf Kahn a busy schedule of group and solo exhibitions, providing a model for and Jane Wilson continued later co-ops. Originally founded in a barber shop on East Fourth Street, to paint figuratively, creating the gallery moved in spring compelling portraits as 1953 to a less expensive and well as scenes from their larger—though still small— everyday lives. storefront at 90 East Tenth Membership dues at Street. Artist Angelo Ippolito, Hansa’s initial address on a co-founder, transformed East Twelfth Street were $21 both spaces into clean, white- a month, later reduced to $15. walled galleries, designed In 1954, the gallery moved the invitations, and oversaw uptown to 210 Central Park installations with artist South and raised dues to $35 members who paid monthly a month. The new location, dues of $10. The Tanager also near commercial galleries received financial support Jane Wilson, Portrait of Jane Freilicher, 1957. on Fifty-seventh Street and Oil on canvas, 36 × 24 in. (91.4 × 61 cm). Collection from the father of member the Stable Gallery around the Estate of John Gruen. © Estate of Jane Wilson. Sally Hazelet Drummond corner on Fifty-eighth Street, Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York in exchange for artworks. was a strategic move to attract This additional funding collectors. In 1955 Richard Bellamy, who was close to Hansa members made it possible to hire a Barbara and Miles Forst, was hired as the gallery’s director; later he gallery assistant, a position shared the position with Ivan Karp, then a writer for the Village Voice. notably held by the future The uptown Hansa ultimately operated less as a thriving business and Poster for Painters Sculptors on 10th Street, art historian and critic more as a clubhouse where artists, critics, dealers, art historians, and Tanager Gallery, New York, December 1956– Irving Sandler, who worked patrons gathered, attracted by both the adventurous art and Bellamy 1 1 January 1957. Offset print, 27 ⁄2 × 15 ⁄2 in. there for several years and Karp’s convivial personalities. (69.9 × 39.4 cm). Design: Angelo Ippolito. while a graduate student at Collection of Lois Dodd, New York Columbia University. BRATA GALLERY 89 East Tenth Street (October 1957–April 1962) Tanager artists resisted what they viewed as critics’ outworn Co-founded by the brothers John and Nicholas Krushenick, the Brata designation of downtown art as a unified “New York School.” In took its name from the word “brother” in their father’s native Russian- response, artist-curators organized shows that offered the nuanced Ukranian dialect. Having worked at the Museum of Modern Art as a mix of representational and abstract art that came to characterize the framer, Nicholas believed there was a need for this service downtown; Tenth Street scene. One ambitious landmark exhibition of October 1961, The Private Myth, organized by Sidney Geist and Philip Pearlstein, examined the use of symbols in sculpture and assemblage by twenty- eight artists.

HANSA GALLERY 70 East Twelfth Street (November 1952– November 1954); 210 Central Park South (December 1954–June 1959) Most of the twelve artists who founded Hansa Gallery studied with painter Hans Hofmann, in his schools in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts; his first name is honored in the co-op’s name. Hansa artists included Jan Müller and Miles Forst, whose work and ideas were central to the gallery’s spirit. Members Jean Follett, Allan Kaprow, George Segal, and Richard Stankiewicz began incorporating found objects in their paintings, sculptures, and assemblages, and, Yayoi Kusama with painting from her Infinity Net series, c. 1959. Photograph: Kenneth in an attempt to address viewers more directly, created site-specific van Sickle. Courtesy the photographer

2

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 2 12/13/16 2:15 PM running a business there helped cover some of the gallery’s expenses. drew the American and Japanese members together and pointed The Krushenick brothers invited Nicholas’s longtime friend, painter toward new ways of thinking about abstraction. Not every Brata artist Al Held, to join. Other members included Ronald Bladen, Sal Romano, pursued this formalist approach, but between 1957 and 1960, geometric George Sugarman, and Ed Clark—who was one of the very few African works lent the gallery a remarkably coherent aesthetic. This tendency American artists to join a Tenth Street co-op. The Brata also welcomed culminated in critical acclaim for Yayoi Kusama’s 1959 solo exhibition a number of Japanese artists, including husband and wife Robert at Brata, which drew widespread admiration for her controlled use Kobayashi and Nanae Momiyama. The notion that abstraction’s cross- of paint, repetition of form, and monumental scale, jumpstarting her cultural history could be reconciled differently, via a type of synthesis, illustrious career.

CITY AS MUSE focuses on four galleries whose artists took urban life as their point of departure: City Gallery, Reuben Gallery, Delancey Street Museum, and Judson Gallery. All rejected the co-op model; their spaces were either donated or operated as gallery, studio, and living space. Each gallery presented groundbreaking shows, many of which consisted of installations (in today’s terms) or performances, then promoted as “Happenings.”

CITY GALLERY 735 Sixth Avenue (November 1958–May 1959) Milder—gathered nearly 100 drawings, which generated tremendous In fall 1958, when Charles “Red” Grooms returned to New York from a excitement and attention in the press. The gallery closed in May 1959 summer in Provincetown, he moved into a loft at 735 Sixth Avenue, at when Grooms left the city for the summer, and the building was torn the corner of Twenty-fourth Street. That same fall, Grooms and artist down soon thereafter. Jay Milder helped found the Tenth Street co-op Phoenix Gallery— but they soon felt stifled by its administrative demands and many REUBEN GALLERY 61 Fourth Avenue (October 1959–June 1960) 44 East Third Street (November 1960–April 1961) The Reuben Gallery was founded by Allan Kaprow and Anita Rubin in the summer of 1959, after the Hansa Gallery closed; its name came from the biblical spelling of Anita’s last name. Pushing the boundaries of painting and sculpture, the Reuben also introduced performance art as a serious form. Inspired by the simultaneity of a three-ring circus, Kaprow created his revolutionary 18 Happenings in 6 Parts for the gallery’s inaugural show, using translucent plastic sheeting to divide the space into three separate rooms; over the course of an hour, six actions unfolded in each room. This watershed performance, or “Happening,” set the bar for the gallery’s experimental approach. Other artists given solo exhibitions at the Reuben include Robert Whitman, formerly with the Hansa, whose suspended sculpture and use of the floor produced a total environment. Lucas Samaras’s paintings and exquisite pastels drew critical acclaim. Also generating attention

1 1 were Claes Oldenburg and Jim Dine, who both reprised themes they Red Grooms, Untitled (Street scene with monster), c. 1958. Ink on paper, 13 ⁄2 × 18 ⁄4 in. (34.3 × 46.4 cm). Collection of Saskia Grooms. Photograph: Jeffrey Sturges. Art © 2016 had first explored in their Judson Gallery shows, and Red Grooms, Red Grooms/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York who exhibited paintings and drawings as well as mounting his performance The Magic Train Ride in January 1960. Renée Rubin and meetings, which prompted them to open their own space, City Gallery, Martha Edelheit fabricated powerful assemblages that paralleled the in the front of Grooms’s loft. Michaela “Micky” Weisselberg, (now Mica Nava) a young artist from London who was studying part-time at the Art Students League, soon joined the gallery and managed the space. Grooms and Milder, along with artist Lester Johnson, were inspired by Manhattan city life. A decade older than his collaborators, Johnson insisted on the continuing validity of figuration; Grooms bridged the stylistic gap between Johnson’s sensual figures and the rough expressionism of younger representational painters such as Milder and Bob Thompson. Their desire to work with great speed, fewer restrictions, and more improvisation was aided by the group’s lack of bylaws, which constituted a marked departure from the formality of the Tenth Street galleries. City Gallery’s ambitious Drawings exhibition featured more than forty-five artists, ranging from the celebrated Franz Kline and

George Grosz to the emerging artists at the gallery’s heart. The show Claes Oldenburg and Anita Rubin in The Street, Reuben Gallery, New York, May 6–19, 1960. was con­ceived by Weisselberg, who—with help from Grooms and Photograph: I. C. Rapoport. Courtesy the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio, New York 3

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 3 12/13/16 2:15 PM raw immediacy and combines of Robert Rauschenberg (whose work was the “museum” wasn’t heated, and its chilly temperatures did not help included in a group show at the Reuben in 1959–60). attract visitors. During its brief existence, Delancey Street Museum After the first season, Anita Rubin stepped down from the gallery’s held two more performances, both happenings produced by women daily management. Jim Dine then found a space on East Third Street artists—Marcia Marcus and Joan Herbst—in 1960. that he, Kaprow, Oldenburg, and Whitman devoted to performance— presenting Oldenburg’s Ironworks/Foto Death, Dine’s Car Crash, JUDSON GALLERY 239 Thompson Street Whitman’s The American Moon, and Kaprow’s A Spring Happening, (February 1959–January 1962) among others. Whitman invited dancer Simone Forti to take part in his Bud Scott—a community-minded minister at Judson Memorial Church, performances and also to produce her own. Her two powerful actions on the south side of Washington Square Park—reached out to artists Rollers and See Saw pushed performance into new terrain. The Reuben in the Village in 1959. Among those who responded was Cooper Union Gallery served as a site for the redefinition of painting and sculpture— student Marcus Ratliff, then living at Judson House on Thompson not as discrete disciplines defined by their materials, but rather in Street, who brought in his high school friend from Cincinnati, Jim relation to environments. Dine, a recent arrival in New York, and a new friend, Tom Wesselmann,

DELANCEY STREET MUSEUM 148 Delancey Street (October 1959–May 1960) In 1959, Red Grooms moved from Chelsea to an abandoned boxing gym on the third floor of 148 Delancey Street, at the corner of Suffolk Street, on the Lower East Side. As he had done at City Gallery, Grooms conceived the space as both private studio and public gallery. He dubbed it the Delancey Street Museum and mounted on the door a life-size sculpture of Abraham Lincoln made of found wood. The gallery’s inaugural show in 1959 included work by Grooms’s frequent collaborators, painters Bob Thompson and Jay Milder, along with Milder’s wife, Sheila, as well as Lester Johnson and two artists Grooms had met in Provincetown, Emilio Cruz and Marcia Marcus.

Martha Edelheit, Dream of the Tattooed Lady, 1960. Ink and watercolor on rice paper, 7 7 11 ⁄8 × 17 ⁄8 in. (30.2 × 45.4 cm). Collection of the artist

another Cooper Union student from Ohio; in collaboration with Scott, they transformed the basement into an approximately 1,000-square- foot exhibition venue. There they mounted a series of shows, including Phyllis Yampolsky’s first solo show. Impressed by a small exhibition of Claes Oldenburg’s drawings, Ratliff and Wesselmann offered him a solo exhibition. In January 1960, Judson’s most radical projects made their debut: Oldenburg’s The Street and Dine’s The House. Created in the gallery itself, both installations demolished the boundaries separating drawing, painting, sculpture, Bob Thompson, Announcement for opening at Delancey Street Museum, New York, and theater. Before their installations were dismantled, Oldenburg and October 23, 1959. Ink on paper, 22 × 34 in. (55.9 × 86.4 cm). © Estate of Bob Thompson. Dine organized Ray Gun Spex (February 29–March 2, 1960), in which Courtesy Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York Oldenburg performed Snapshots From the City inside The Street. The audience also moved about the church’s other spaces, viewing Dine’s While Milder, Thompson, Cruz, and Marcus remained committed to The Smiling Workman, Projections by Al Hansen, Coca Cola Shirley drawing and painting, and staged successful exhibitions at the Delancey Cannonball by Allan Kaprow, Edifices Cabarets Contributions by Dick Street Museum, Grooms used the space to develop performance pieces. Higgins, and Duet for a Small Smell by Robert Whitman. Enacting the fascination with fire he had explored earlier that summer Following this watershed series, Oldenburg arranged solo shows in Provincetown, Grooms developed The Burning Building, which for two artists he had met at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago: featured six artist-actors, including Milder and Thompson. Dispensing printmaker Richard Tyler and painter-assemblage artist Dorothea with the notion of a script, Grooms asked his performers to call out words Baer, both of whose work anticipates the counterculture’s bohemian or short phrases to evoke a story of fire, love, and heroism. The Burning sensibility and embrace of spiritual philosophies. Kaprow succeeded Building was performed over seven days in December 1959, sometimes Oldenburg as the Judson’s curatorial adviser between 1960 and 1962— twice a day. Painter Anne Tabachnick recalled that during these events continuing the gallery’s commitment to presenting experimental Thompson, in white clown makeup for his role as the Doorman, stood works by young artists such as Gloria Graves, Martha Edelheit, Alison in the street to hustle up an audience. Although admission was free, Knowles, and Dan Flavin.

4

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 4 12/16/16 9:00 AM SPACE AND TIME highlights how installation, performance, and related concepts were investigated differently by two separate groups: the musicians, composers, dancers, and artists involved with the boundary- expanding Chambers Street Loft Series organized by Yoko Ono and La Monte Young, and, two years later, group exhibitions of painting and sculpture at 79 Park Place. Artworks at 112 Chambers Street reflected the impact of poetry, dance, and especially music. Park Place artists viewed time and space through a space-age lens, focusing in particular on theories about the fourth dimension and pushing abstraction in radical new directions.

79 PARK PLACE (November 1963–March 1964) In 1962, Dean Fleming rented the third floor of 79 Park Place, located in lower Manhattan near the former Washington Street vegetable market. He paid $35 per month for the approximately 2,500-square-foot space. Except for a diner on the ground floor, the five-story building would soon be occupied entirely by artists, including Fleming, his friend Leo Valledor, and his wife, Mary Leahy, along with the recently married artists Forrest Myers and Tamara Melcher. It also became a destination for the artists’ San Francisco Bay Area friends, especially Mark di Suvero, who moved to New York in 1957, as well as Anthony Magar from London, and the New Yorkers Robert Grosvenor and Edwin Ruda. In spring 1963, the artists fixed up the building’s fire-damaged top floor and converted it into a music studio and exhibition space to test ideas. Collectively disenchanted with the New York gallery system, they did not keep regular hours and planned to split equally any profits from sales. Embracing an ethos of collaboration, they shared an interest in jazz (especially the work of Ornette Coleman), recent developments in Yoko Ono with Toshi Ichiyanagi (at the piano) and Toshiro Mayuzumi at her Chambers science, mathematical theories, and the utopian ideas of modernist Street loft, 1961. Photograph: Minoru Niizuma. Collection of Yoko Ono, New York. architect Buckminster Fuller. These conceptual affinities are conveyed Stretching horizontally across the background in this publicity photo for a concert at in the imposing steel and wood sculptures of Di Suvero, Myers, and the Village Gate is one of Ono’s participatory Instruction Paintings. Magar, as well as the radiant geometric abstract compositions of Fleming, Valledor, Peter Forakis, Ruda, and Melcher. In 1964, 79 Park 112 CHAMBERS STREET (December 1960–June 1961) Place was slated for demolition—ultimately to make way for the World Yoko Ono leased a fourth-floor loft at 112 Chambers Street in December Trade Center. In 1967, photographer Danny Lyon, the artists’ friend, 1960, to be used as both studio and performance venue. There she photographed the building before it was torn down. The group stayed established the Chambers Street Loft Series, inviting La Monte Young together, and the following year they secured a space at 542 West to co-curate. During the series, Ono installed her Instruction Paintings Broadway (in the blocks later renamed LaGuardia Place), just north of throughout the space—and asked visitors to participate by stepping on, what would soon become SoHo. The group’s strong resistance to the art adding color to, throwing food at, lighting on fire, or causing shadows market fostered a community that generated new ideas about public art to appear on them. and the genesis of what we now know as nonprofit alternative spaces. Among the many artists, poets, musicians, and dancers who presented projects at 112 Chambers Street were Simone Forti and Robert Morris. With her May 1961 Five Dance Constructions & Some Other Things, Forti helped redefine choreography, shifting dance toward corporeal challenges to be resolved differently by performers according to their physical abilities and the parameters of her rules. Like Ono’s Instruction Paintings, Forti’s rules lack the capacity to predict results. Morris’s June 1961 Passageway, another breakthrough work, was composed of two arcing plywood walls that gradually narrowed, beginning at the door to the loft and extending approximately fifty feet back. A plywood ceiling followed the structure’s curve, effectively sealing the work off from its surroundings. Morris painted Passageway gray and added a soundtrack of a ticking metronome; electric bulbs provided just enough light to allow viewers to navigate the space. Possessing neither the functionality of architecture nor the autonomy of sculpture, Passageway is impossible to perceive all at once. Although short-lived, 112 Chambers Street was remarkable as both venue for and Forrest Myers, E=MC3, 1963. Aluminum, 13 × 16 × 15 in. (33 × 40.6 × 38.1 cm). Collection material of radical works of art—inciting a shift away from objects and Paula Cooper, New York. © Forrest Myers. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. toward Conceptual Art. Photograph: Steven Probert

5

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 5 12/16/16 9:01 AM POLITICS AS PRACTICE explores the art and exhibition programs of four downtown organizations: March Group, Judson Church’s Hall of Issues, The Center, and Spiral Group. Coincident with the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960, these galleries explored the viability of politics as a subject matter for art and debated new strategies. In the wake of World War II and under the shadow of the Cold War, each fostered a sense of social urgency during the civil rights era and the nascent counterculture, articulating a new awareness of the artists’ responsibility to their communities.

MARCH GROUP 90 East Tenth Street (1960–62) HALL OF ISSUES AT JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH Until fall 1960, the March Gallery—located in a squat basement with 55 Washington Square South (December 1961–January 1963) exposed pipes, tin ceiling, and whitewashed brick walls—was a typical Artist Phyllis Yampolsky initiated the Hall of Issues at Judson Tenth Street co-op of the late 1950s; its diverse members practiced a Memorial Church in 1961. This open-call exhibition and public range of styles. This would change with the advent of Boris Lurie, one of program series allowed all who were interested—even non-artists—to the co-op’s founding members, who took charge of the gallery. Dismayed instigate discussions and participate in the project. The Hall of Issues by the increasing careerism of the Tenth Street gallery scene, he wanted presented topical statements and visual artworks from “anyone who to do something different. Lurie had arrived in New York with his father has any statement to make about any social, political or esthetic in 1946, after surviving four years’ imprisonment in Nazi concentration concern.” Displays changed every Sunday and required a modest entry camps. He found likeminded colleagues in Sam Goodman, who shared fee of twenty-five cents. his disdain for the art world, and the poet Stanley Fisher. Lining the walls of Judson’s Long Hall, materials were informally taped or pinned to temporary Celotex insulation panels. Weekly dialogues were offered on Wednesday evenings, bringing together artists, community activists, and experts in a variety of fields. Though it was not conceived as an art exhibition, the initiative counted luminaries such as Claes Oldenburg, Dean Fleming, Yampolsky herself, and her husband, Peter Forakis, among its contributors. The Wednesday forums resembled the consciousness-raising sessions

Boris Lurie’s Lumumba Is Dead (Adieu Amérique; formerly December) and a work by Hall of Issues, with Phyllis Yampolsky at right, Judson Memorial Church, New York, Sam Goodman in Vulgar Show, March Gallery, New York, November 1960. Photographer 1962. Photograph: Dave Heath. Courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, and unknown. Boris Lurie Art Foundation, New York Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York. © Dave Heath

During World War II, Fisher had served as a medic in the 1944 that grew out of the social activism associated with the New Left, with Normandy campaign, arriving soon after D-Day to treat the wounded. which Judson Church was aligned. Yampolsky banned the direct Under Lurie and Goodman’s tutelage, Fisher identified an artistic outlet broadcast of any party platform, however, reflecting the Hall of Issues’s where he could express the horrors of combat. The three Jewish artists apolitical position. Such non-partisan polemics were attacked by invited others, such as French artist Jean-Jacques Lebel, to participate the nihilist contributions of artists Sam Goodman, Stanley Fisher, in group shows. Embracing unpopular and anti-aesthetic stances, and and Jean-Jacques Lebel. In summer 1962, Yampolsky curated Best mining newspapers and magazines for their provocative imagery, they of the Hall of Issues, a selection of art, films, and music, as well as employed art as a tool for making polemical statements—rejecting a repeat presentation of the well-received play Totentanz, by Peter American “supermarket culture,” and later characterizing their work Schumann and his Bread and Puppet Theater. A ritual dance of death as “anti-Pop.” In 1960–62 they produced three group exhibitions: the and resurrection inspired by Hans Holbein’s etchings, the production Vulgar Show, the Involvement Show, and the Doom Show. Each focused featured black-draped figures moving to a steady percussive beat. on issues pertaining to the Cold War, images from the Holocaust in the wake of the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, the civil rights movement, and liberation struggles against colonial rule.

6

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 6 12/13/16 2:15 PM Street that summer. Members included Bearden’s cousin, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, Norman Lewis, Emma Amos, and others. Before the end of the year, they had secured a space on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Spiral represented the only effort by visual artists to self-consciously align with the civil rights movement before 1965. Taking their name from the Archimedean spiral—a symbol that is imbued with the latent power of untapped energy and found in the art of many peoples—the group was caught up in debates over the modernist belief in the autonomy and universality of art, which discouraged the overt insertion of race into aesthetics. Before the Black Arts movement in 1965, artworks referencing race were likely to be condemned as sociological, not aesthetic. Spiral’s artists were passionate about confronting the tumultuous events of their time but struggled with the question of how to incorporate politics Aldo Tambellini at the Sculpture and Drawing Show, grounds of St. Mark’s Church-in- into modernism. Many feared the pitfalls of self-segregating in the art the-Bowery, New York, 1963. Photograph: Don Snyder. Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, world if they too closely or narrowly identified themselves and their Massachusetts. © Don Snyder Estate works—a debate that continues today. Such concerns contributed to the group’s slow, even fitful, working process; it took them two years to reach THE CENTER (1962–65) the consensus that made it possible to mount Spiral: Works in Black and In the Hall of Issues, Aldo Tambellini found an important precedent for White in 1965, their only exhibition. his own community-based multimedia spaces and inclusive aesthetics. Born in Syracuse, New York, to Italian parents, Tambellini spent his formative years in Tuscany, Italy, and returned to Syracuse after World War II. Arriving in New York City in 1959, he settled on the Lower East Side. Working in his building’s backyard, using objects from the debris surrounding demolished buildings, Tambellini cast them into concave forms with Hydrocal plaster. While his molds were hardening, he added nails, shards, piping, and beer cans—resulting in sculptures that were part testament to the neighborhood, part fossilized relics. Tambellini fenced in a recently cleared lot next to his backyard space, where he fashioned an outdoor sculpture park for his works. In 1962–63 he dubbed his efforts The Center, a new type of artist- run organization and non-commercial forum with a commitment to art’s relevance in the fight against racism and poverty in the Lower East Side. Tambellini’s wife Elsa was his administrative partner. Other participants included the artist Ben Morea and the black poets affiliated with Umbra, a literary collective and magazine. Wanting to engage non-art-world audiences, the Tambellinis partnered with St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, then under the leadership of former Look magazine editor Reverend J. C. Michael Allen, who helped garner further support from the social service agency Lower East Side Neighborhood Association (LENA). The Center’s first programs at St. Mark’s Church in June 1963 included a small exhibition of paintings and a two-week “LENA Festival” featuring outdoor jazz concerts, poetry readings, and film screenings.

SPIRAL GROUP 147 Christopher Street (1963–65) The Spiral Group comprised some fifteen African American artists who convened to discuss issues and shared concerns. Formed just prior to the August 1963 March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom—the largest protest against racial discrimination in the history of the United Norman Lewis, Untitled, 1965. Oil on canvas, 62 × 37 in. (157.5 × 94 cm). States—the group began meeting in Romare Bearden’s loft on Canal Courtesy Seth Taffae Fine Art, New York

7

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 7 12/13/16 2:15 PM DEFINING DOWNTOWN considers the five-year history of the Green Gallery. Directed by Richard Bellamy— who had previously worked at the Hansa Gallery—and secretly financed by collector Robert Scull, it does not fit the strict definition of an artist-run space. However, Green Gallery exhibitions promoted the kind of risk-taking art featured in the more adventurous noncommercial enterprises. Bellamy, a true downtown denizen, spotted and showed, early on, work that would become known as Pop and Minimalism and, with Scull’s backing, helped establish their marketability.

GREEN GALLERY 15 West Fifty-seventh Street Oldenburg—who together helped establish Pop Art as an unprecedented (October 1960–June 1965) new trend, testifying to Bellamy’s attentiveness to the era’s most novel After inaugurating the Green Gallery in October 1960 with an and momentous artistic developments. Oldenburg’s 1962 exhibition exhibition of Mark di Suvero’s commanding, large-scale sculptures, helped stabilize the gallery’s shaky finances, enabling seminal shows Richard Bellamy fostered a spirit of collaboration among the of works by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Robert Morris between 1963 downtown artists who showed there. Located in the heart of the and 1965. Together these artists shepherded in Minimalism as a new commercial gallery district on Fifty-seventh Street, Green Gallery art form, using the Green Gallery’s space to reconceive sculpture itself. introduced midtown audiences to performance, environments, a new At the same time, two shows of difficult-to-classify objects, boxes, and realist tendency, and sculptures that emphasized materiality, often pastels by Lucas Samaras—including the 1964 reconstruction of his to great critical acclaim. Bringing downtown uptown and embracing New Jersey bedroom in the gallery—counter views of the period as artistic pluralism, Bellamy was less concerned with defining art, and completely dominated by Pop and Minimalism, epitomizing the Green selling it, than his fellow gallerists. Gallery’s ethos of openness and its avoidance of stylistic orthodoxy. During its first two years, the Green Gallery showcased When Scull pulled out of the venture in spring 1964, the Green Gallery abstraction’s reanimation by painters such as Tadaaki Kuwayama survived for one more season, but without financial backing, it closed and Joan Jacobs. Also mounted in the gallery’s early years were solo in spring 1965. Ironically, while its program initially demonstrated shows by Pat Passlof and group exhibitions featuring figurative works great diversity, the commercial success of some of its artists ultimately by James Rosenquist, George Segal, Tom Wesselmann, and Claes ended up excluding and marginalizing many others.

Mark di Suvero exhibition, Green Gallery, New York, October 1960, with Hankchampion OPPOSITE, BOTTOM: Six Exemplary Paintings, Hansa Gallery group show, October 14– 1 3 and Barrel. Photograph: Rudy Burckhardt. Courtesy Spacetime C.C., New York. Estate November 2, 1955. Offset print, 10 ⁄2 × 4 ⁄4 in. (26.7 × 12.1 cm). Collection of Sophie Forst, of Rudy Burckhardt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Left to right: Sidney Geist, New York Richard Bellamy, and unidentified woman

8

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 8 12/16/16 9:02 AM AN INTERVIEW WITH MELISSA RACHLEFF, GUEST CURATOR

BY BRIAN BENTLEY AND ALISON MUELLER

Brian Bentley (BB): How did this project come about? AM: Why did artists begin to form their own galleries in the early 1950s? Why was New York City, and more specifically downtown, Melissa Rachleff (MR): In spring 2009, I taught a graduate class the epicenter for so much artistic experimentation, both in the art in NYU’s MA Program in Visual Arts Administration, titled “The being made and in the model of selling that art? Dematerialization of the Art Gallery,” which looked at how artists produced exhibitions that had no market value. The Museum of Modern MR: The Fifty-seventh Street galleries date back to before the First Art had just posted an online exhibition about Richard Bellamy World War. New York had major museums showing modern art and the Hansa and Green galleries. I began to go through Bellamy’s downtown: in 1929 MoMA opens, and then the Whitney Museum in voluminous papers and discovered that the 1950s and early ’60s were 1931. Uptown, Solomon Guggenheim and Hilla Rebay are putting a far more vibrant era than I had realized. I had also learned about their collection of non-objective art on view. So New York becomes an the Tenth Street galleries and recognized that they were just the tip epicenter for art. It’s hard to imagine now, but in the 1950s, downtown was really inexpensive. You could be an artist and not have to work full-time, and still have a place to live. Another significant factor was that Hans Hofmann had started his art school on West Eighth Street. The Club, a hangout for the Abstract Expressionists, also on Eighth Street, was a place where artists discussed ideas about what art could or should be. And at New York University, students like Alfred Leslie opened studio spaces in the University’s School of Education, where they taught art. A number of veterans also took advantage of the GI Bill to go back to school and get a place to live downtown.

BB: Could you clarify what exactly the cooperative gallery model was? Red Grooms’s Magic Train Ride, Reuben Gallery, New York, 1960. MR: Co-op galleries were businesses where members split the expenses Photograph: John Cohen. Courtesy L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, NYC. © John Cohen of the operation. They had bylaws and were incorporated. Every co- op member paid fees. Members also determined officers—who was of the iceberg. Anita Rubin, who had helped start the Reuben Gallery, president, who was treasurer, and so on—and worked on a volunteer graciously sketched it all out for me. Then Milly Glimcher at the Pace basis to keep the gallery open; some galleries levied fees to pay for an Gallery contacted me about her exhibition and book on Happenings. assistant. The Hansa Gallery’s bylaws That sparked a wonderful collaboration; Milly generously shared an were well formulated; you can see a copy amazing archive of photographs taken by Robert McElroy. She also put of them in the show. The co-op gallery’s me in touch with Julie Martin who, with her husband, Billy Klüver, had drawback was that in deciding how to recorded in the 1990s artist interviews looking back at this time. These manage the space and determine the fee absolutely changed the way I understood the era. structure, the meetings could become quite contentious. Alison Mueller (AM): Why focus on the period between 1952 and 1965? BB: Why was Tenth Street the epicenter? MR: In 1952, both the Tanager and Hansa galleries opened. These were perhaps the most prestigious of all the artists’ co-ops. We end in 1965 MR: A lot of artists lived on East Tenth because that’s when art culture in New York starts to split. By 1965, Street—from Fourth Avenue to First there is a bifurcation of attitudes between downtown and uptown. Avenue—including Willem de Kooning, Also, that year coincides with the solidification of a new American Esteban Vicente, Milton Resnick, and art market, epitomized by Pop Art. If you showed some Pop artists, it Perle Fine. It was Fine who told the became possible to survive as a business. In addition, to deal with a Tanager artists about the available New York scene post-1965, you have to address the anti-war movement, retail space at 90 Tenth Street. Most of the women’s movement, gay liberation, and the formation of nonprofits. the buildings on Tenth Street between That is another project with a very different set of concerns. Fourth and Third Avenues were of the

9

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 9 12/13/16 2:16 PM Simone Forti and Patty Mucha performing in Forti’s Rollers in Happenings, Reuben Gallery, New York, December 16–18, 1960. Photograph: Robert McElroy. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 2014.M.7. © J. Paul Getty Trust

Mary Frank, Reclining Figure, c. 1960. Wood, 24 × 19 × 34 in. (61 × 48.3 × 86.4 cm). The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. Museum purchase with the Helen and Everett H. Jones Purchase Fund

three-story tenement type, with parlor floors designed as storefronts. erotic. There are so many women artists we don’t even know! I’m hoping During this postwar period, many of the businesses that had been art history and museum studies students will start uncovering them! there closed and rents were very cheap. The spaces were not unlike AM: What effect did music, theater, and the performing arts exert those of the Lower East Side galleries now, which occupy similar on the visual artists of this period? storefronts. They’re not that big, but they’re big enough for shows. MR: Influences went both ways. The composer Steve Reich has noted BB: Jean Follett’s work is featured in Inventing Downtown. Who that his audiences were largely comprised of visual artists. Allan are some of the other women artists you think warrant more Kaprow had studied at Hans Hofmann’s school, so he was steeped attention or critical reevaluation? in compositional theory. In 1957 he wanted to do something with MR: Jean Follett is very important; many artists cited her as an influence. I am not yet finished with my research on her—she is my next project. Lois Dodd just had a retrospective at the Portland Art Museum in Maine; a lovely painting by her from the late 1950s is in the show. Sally Hazelet Drummond is another woman artist I came to admire; she created exquisite abstract pointillist canvases. Jane Wilson’s work is absolutely moving; she had a facility for capturing light. Mary Frank’s powerful carved-wood sculptures mine the body so sensually; they are amazing. Mimi Gross’s work was another delight—her keen sense of color and love of New York City scenes captured my heart. Marcia Marcus’s self-portraits are ironic before irony was really in style. Phyllis Yampolsky, with her comic sensibility and graphic style, was way ahead of her time, as was Martha Edelheit, whose work probes the

7 Mimi Gross, Street Scene, 1958. Oil stick on paper, 11 × 13 ⁄8 in. (27.9 × 35.2 cm). Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Jeffrey Sturges

10

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 10 12/13/16 2:16 PM BB: Can you talk a little bit about the relationship between art and politics during this time?

MR: In 1965, the civil rights movement becomes increasingly active. The Spiral Group was a coalition of African American artists who met between the summer of 1963 and the fall of ’65. Romare Bearden was invited by A. Philip Randolph—who organized the 1963 March on Washington—to form a coalition in the spirit of that event. Bearden, his cousin Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, who was teaching at NYU, Norman Lewis, Emma Amos, and others began to meet. This was the only self-conscious effort on the part of visual artists to side with the civil rights movement before 1965. Many artists were acutely affected by World War II. Boris Lurie, in particular, had survived the Buchenwald concentration camp. He and his father, who also survived, settled in New York after the war. Lurie was appalled by the rhetoric in the newspapers about Russian-American Simone Forti and Patty Mucha performing in Forti’s Rollers in Happenings, Reuben relations and talk of nuclear annihilation. He was also horrified by Gallery, New York, December 16–18, 1960. Photograph: Robert McElroy. Getty Research capital punishment, especially the notion that gas chambers were Institute, Los Angeles, 2014.M.7. © J. Paul Getty Trust still being used to euthanize human beings. Lurie embarked on a series of agitprop exhibitions that pierced through the rhetoric of sound. Someone directed him to Cage’s class, where he quickly saw American culture to reveal the ugly ideologies that were proliferating. you could take Cage’s lessons and apply them to the visual arts. An When he takes over the cooperative March Gallery in January 1960, interdisciplinary conversation was opening art up in New York. he starts producing amazing artwork along with his collaborators, Simone Forti, for example, trained as a visual artist and migrated into including Sam Goodman, Stanley Fisher, and Jean-Jacques Lebel. At dance when she lived in the Bay Area, and then became a performer in the March Gallery in 1960–62, Lurie, Goodman, and Fisher mount three Robert Whitman’s Happenings in addition to producing her own. provocative exhibitions: the Vulgar Show, the Involvement Show, and the Doom Show. These were truly unprecedented political statements. AM: The Green Gallery’s commercial status and uptown location Of course Phyllis Yampolsky’s free-spirited Hall of Issues, which make it unique in this exhibition. Can you speak to its importance opened at the Judson Memorial Church in December 1961, was another and why it’s included? radical project. Yampolsky conceived the venue less as a gallery than MR: Strictly speaking, the Green Gallery shouldn’t be included because as a forum to allow artists to air their political and nonpolitical views it’s not an artist-run space. Richard Bellamy isn’t an artist although about issues that mattered to them. he acted like one. He was hired by the Hansa Gallery in 1955, when Aldo Tambellini, who grew up in Tuscany, made a narrow escape they moved uptown. The members knew him from summers spent in in World War II; an allied plane dropped a bomb in his hometown, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Bellamy shared the Hansa job with Ivan he was nearly blown up. He came to the Lower East Side in the midst of Karp, who eventually went to work with Leo Castelli. At the Castelli Gallery, Karp met Robert Scull, who wanted to buy as many works as possible by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. But Castelli and Karp were trying to build a legacy for these artists by placing their works in various collections. Resenting his lack of access, Scull approached Karp about opening a gallery; Karp recommended Richard Bellamy. The Green Gallery debuted with a show of sculpture by Mark di Suvero, and Scull bought one or two works. Bellamy also showed works by a number of women artists during the first two years, including Yayoi Kusama, Sally Hazelet Drummond, Joan Jacobs, and Pat Passlof. Bellamy had followed what was happening at the Reuben Gallery. And he asked George Segal to join the Green stable. He also invited Claes Oldenburg to come uptown and, over the summer of 1962, Oldenburg made his signature soft sculptures in the gallery itself. Bellamy remained extremely open to artists such as Richard Smith, Tadaaki Kuwayama, Robert Morris, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd (whom he knew as a critic, initially). At the end of the 1963–64 season, Scull pulled out. The gallery couldn’t sustain itself without a backer, and it closed at the end of the following season.

Outside the March Gallery during Doom Show, New York, November 1961–January 1962. Boris Lurie Art Foundation, New York

11

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 11 12/13/16 2:16 PM an enormous urban renewal project. New buildings—such as the white- DIRECTOR’S LETTER and red-brick complexes that were publicly subsidized, and others that were speculative—were going up. And whole city blocks were coming The staff of the Grey Art Gallery is extremely proud to organize and down. All these kids playing in the rubble reminded him of the war, present Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, and that’s when he began thinking about creating outdoor art venues 1952–1965. Curated by Melissa Rachleff and six years in the making, and how to engage the local residents. In 1962–63, he founded The this landmark show reveals how artists conceived and created their Center, a public-art organization that initiated outdoor exhibitions and own exhibition opportunities in mid-20th-century Manhattan. At festivals as a means of engaging local residents with contemporary art. first these cooperative ventures loosely resembled commercial art galleries—of which there were simply too few in New York during this BB: To conclude, could you summarize some of the most significant era—but, over time, they evolved into experimental and innovative developments during this period as presented in the exhibition? sites that encouraged and abetted inventive approaches to artmaking MR: In the 1950s and early ’60s, artists are reinventing both abstraction itself. Indeed, Inventing Downtown can be seen as a paradigmatic and figuration. At the same time, assemblage moves toward the model for the type of shows university art museums should mount. environmental and performative, away from focusing on the object Not only do Inventing Downtown and the tome-sized publication that itself and toward incorporating the body and spatial dimensions. accompanies it further new scholarship of an extremely vital period of Artist-run galleries were crucial to both these developments. They American art, this project brings to light many works—including those provided places where artists could test out new ideas and strategies— by women and artists of color—which have previously been overlooked. even if their relative lack of sales left many artists in desperate University art galleries—and the Grey in particular—shouldn’t be financial circumstances. Life on the downtown scene, while chaotic regarded simply as teaching museums. They are so much more, and and uncertain, was at least cheap. they are becoming, at this point in our cultural history, essential to And to some extent, artists’ involvement with galleries provided ensuring visual literacy. As new NYU faculty member Amy Whitaker a first step, as it were, to getting commercial representation. Many argues in her book Art Thinking, artists’ creativity, when showcased Aldo Tambellini with neighborhood children and one of his sculptures, New York, would have preferred to show uptown. Indeed, artists weren’t so much in exhibitions, can encourage all students—including those studying c. 1962. Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, Massachusetts rebelling against Fifty-seventh Street but rather using artist-run sciences, business, economics, healthcare, and so on—to think outside galleries as a way to get their works seen. The co-op model eventually the box, push boundaries, and even provoke in order to mine new evolved into more radical, short-lived experimental spaces. Despite possibilities in their respective fields. Moreover, never before have we being transitional, all these artist-run galleries made a real aesthetic witnessed so many new developments in visual media. With the advent impact. My hope is that Inventing Downtown demonstrates that these of the digital age, students are creating their own online publications, galleries did nothing less than redefine modern art. By focusing websites, videos, and photo albums, presented in an ever-expanding on these forerunners of alternative spaces, the show provides an realm of social-media sites. opportunity to shed more light on artists, both established and those The Grey Art Gallery, NYU’s fine arts museum, serves as a museum- who deserve to be better known, who made this period in American art laboratory, incorporating experimentation as an essential element such a groundbreaking and exciting one. of our programming. Ann Philbin, my colleague at UCLA’s Hammer Transcribed by Grey Art Gallery interns Hazal Kamisli, Charlotte Kohlberg, and Mary-Brett O’Bryan. Museum, concurs, observing that, like the university itself, college galleries function as laboratories “for the research and discovery of the art and ideas that define and redefine our culture today.” But not everyone agrees. An article in the November 2016 issue of The Atlantic asks “Why Do Colleges Have So Much Art?” It recounts how many university art museums are expanding, echoing, as it were, the building boom we are also currently witnessing in our civic, state, and private art institutions. The Grey, I think, might figure among the very small minority of museums that is not looking to enlarge. We are, of course, situated in the very heart of one of the world’s major metropolises and cultural capitals. The magnificent holdings of the Grey’s sister museums are but a short walk or subway ride away. Indeed, we’re a very small fish in a very big pond! What we do emulate, however, are NYU’s global aspirations. An essential part of NYU’s mission is to prepare students for lives in a very diverse world, to see themselves as participants in and shapers of a complex and changing environment. Jim Dine, Announcement for Jim Dine exhibition, Reuben Gallery, New York, April 1–14, Fortunately, the Grey Art Gallery is ideally situated to make this 1960. Offset print. Courtesy the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio, New York. Photograph: happen! Our founder Abby Weed Grey, who amassed a stellar collection José Andrés Ramírez, New York of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art, was a true global visionary Melissa Rachleff is a clinical associate professor of art management who recognized the contributions of non-western contemporary in the Visual Arts Administration MA Program at New York University artists long before the rest of world caught up to her. And while I don’t (Steinhardt). Brian Bentley is graduate curatorial assistant at the think the Grey needs larger temporary exhibition galleries, I do dream Grey Art Gallery and a PhD student in art history at NYU’s Institute of another few thousand square feet that would allow students the Lower East Side, c. 1960. Photograph: Charles Pratt. Estate of Charles Pratt. of Fine Arts. Alison Mueller is a graduate intern at the Grey and a opportunity to organize exhibitions from our permanent collections. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York student in NYU’s MA Program in Museum Studies.

12

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 12 12/13/16 2:16 PM DIRECTOR’S LETTER

The staff of the Grey Art Gallery is extremely proud to organize and present Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965. Curated by Melissa Rachleff and six years in the making, this landmark show reveals how artists conceived and created their own exhibition opportunities in mid-20th-century Manhattan. At first these cooperative ventures loosely resembled commercial art galleries—of which there were simply too few in New York during this era—but, over time, they evolved into experimental and innovative sites that encouraged and abetted inventive approaches to artmaking itself. Indeed, Inventing Downtown can be seen as a paradigmatic model for the type of shows university art museums should mount. Not only do Inventing Downtown and the tome-sized publication that accompanies it further new scholarship of an extremely vital period of American art, this project brings to light many works—including those by women and artists of color—which have previously been overlooked. University art galleries—and the Grey in particular—shouldn’t be regarded simply as teaching museums. They are so much more, and they are becoming, at this point in our cultural history, essential to ensuring visual literacy. As new NYU faculty member Amy Whitaker argues in her book Art Thinking, artists’ creativity, when showcased in exhibitions, can encourage all students—including those studying sciences, business, economics, healthcare, and so on—to think outside the box, push boundaries, and even provoke in order to mine new possibilities in their respective fields. Moreover, never before have we witnessed so many new developments in visual media. With the advent of the digital age, students are creating their own online publications, Claes Oldenburg, Poster for The Store, New York, December 1–31, 1961. Letterpress, websites, videos, and photo albums, presented in an ever-expanding 1 1 28 ⁄4 × 22 ⁄8 in. (71.8 × 56.2 cm). Courtesy the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio, New York. realm of social-media sites. Photograph: Ellen Page Wilson, New York. ©1961 Claes Oldenburg The Grey Art Gallery, NYU’s fine arts museum, serves as a museum- laboratory, incorporating experimentation as an essential element of our programming. Ann Philbin, my colleague at UCLA’s Hammer We also need better storage facilities along with a viewing room where Museum, concurs, observing that, like the university itself, college we could welcome faculty from across the university to teach seminars galleries function as laboratories “for the research and discovery of based on works in the NYU Art Collection. the art and ideas that define and redefine our culture today.” But not But I digress. Inventing Downtown, as Rachleff notes, functions as everyone agrees. An article in the November 2016 issue of The Atlantic a prequel to the Grey’s epic Downtown Show of 2006, which examined asks “Why Do Colleges Have So Much Art?” It recounts how many the tumultuous downtown Manhattan art scene between 1974 and 1984. university art museums are expanding, echoing, as it were, the building We are, as our exhibition track record readily attests, committed to boom we are also currently witnessing in our civic, state, and private revealing the history and diversity of New York’s cultural contributions art institutions. The Grey, I think, might figure among the very small along with promoting new ways to explore the interconnectivity of the minority of museums that is not looking to enlarge. We are, of course, arts. This past September, the Grey hosted A Feast of Astonishments: situated in the very heart of one of the world’s major metropolises Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s–1980s, which revealed and cultural capitals. The magnificent holdings of the Grey’s sister how a classically trained cellist evolved into a radical promoter and museums are but a short walk or subway ride away. Indeed, we’re impresario of avant-garde practices in all media. And in April, we’ll a very small fish in a very big pond! What we do emulate, however, present another show centered on a musician, Mark Mothersbaugh, are NYU’s global aspirations. An essential part of NYU’s mission is to lead singer of the post-punk band DEVO. Mark, it turns out, majored in prepare students for lives in a very diverse world, to see themselves as the visual arts at Ohio’s Kent State University and has been making art participants in and shapers of a complex and changing environment. while also writing songs and performing. Fortunately, the Grey Art Gallery is ideally situated to make this Inventing Downtown and the accompanying book present a happen! Our founder Abby Weed Grey, who amassed a stellar collection new perspective—the first exhibition and publication to look at a of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art, was a true global visionary remarkably fecund period of American art from the vantage point who recognized the contributions of non-western contemporary of artist-run spaces. We are immensely grateful to everyone—too artists long before the rest of world caught up to her. And while I don’t numerous to name here, they are listed nearby—who contributed think the Grey needs larger temporary exhibition galleries, I do dream to this extremely ambitious enterprise. And, of course, our deepest of another few thousand square feet that would allow students the gratitude goes to the artists themselves, for without them, there opportunity to organize exhibitions from our permanent collections. wouldn’t be a downtown scene to explore! Lynn Gumpert, Director

13

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 13 12/16/16 9:03 AM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A truly monumental undertaking, Inventing Downtown could not have been Afua Preston, *Vaughan Rachel, Jed Rapfogel, I. C. Rapoport, Anjuli Rathod, realized without the assistance of many. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the *Marcus Ratliff, Andrea Ravin, Neil Rector, Hanna Reuter, Jock Reynolds, Susan following individuals and institutions (* indicates lenders to the exhibition): Reynolds, John Richey, Jan Riley, Julia E. Robinson, *Joyce Romano, Emma Rooney, Pauline Roony, Steven Rose, Barry Rosen, Bonnie Rosenberg, Michael Taylor J. Acosta, Lynn Addison, Charlie Ahearn, Phil Alexandre, Mitchell Algus, Rosenfeld, James Rosenquist, Judy Ross, Charles Rotmil, *Renée Rubin, Mary Bruce Altshuler, *Emma Amos, Yvonne Andersen, Lauren Anderson, Stephanie Ryan, Keyana Sabbakhan, Lily Sadeghi-Nejad, Anna Salamone, Cansu Saltik, Ard, Carey Ascenzo, Maurice Badon, Lauren Bakoian, Sylvia Bandi, Joellen Bard, *Lucas Samaras, Irving Sandler, *Steven Schapiro, Paul Shechtman, Carolee Claire Barliant, Brent Beamon, *Nadine Beauchamp, *Lois Beckwith, *Sebastian Schneemann, Stan Schnier, Peter Schumann, Rene Segal, Sarah Seiler, Rachel Beckwith, Miles Bellamy, Julia Benjamin, Brian Bentley, Madelyn Berezov, Selekman, Joshua Selman, Alexandra Seneca, Eleanor Rachleff Serow, Yixue Christine Berry, Rachel Bers, Courtney Willis Blair, Tamara Bloomberg, Bryan Shao, Dan Sherry, James Sherry, Andrew Shoelkopf, Michael Shulman, Chris Davidson Blue, Linda Blumberg, Rachel Boyle, Mary Brabeck, Jesse Bransford, Shultz, Suzanne Siano, Anita R. Simons, Betsy Smith, Elizabeth Smith, Nick Maria Brassel, Alexander Brody, Renee Brown, Stephen Bulger, Jacob Burckhardt, Solomon, Hedi Sorger, Chelsea Spengemann, Barbi Spieler, Jenny Sponberg, Carey Burtt, Mary Busick, Charles Cajori, Martha Campbell, Adam Carnes, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Susan Stedman, Gertrude Stein, Judith E. Stein, L. Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, Andrea Cerbie, Zulay Chang, Christophe Cherix, Parker Stephenson, Phyllis Stigliano, Jeffrey Sturges, Elizabeth Sussman, Brian Dr. William J. Chiego, Re’al Christian, Elizabeth W. Christopher, *Ed Clark, James Szott, *Seth Taffae, Susan Talbott, Aldo Tambellini, Tomomi Tanikawa, Marvin Clark, *Melanca Clark, Geoffrey Clements, Alyson Cluck, Jim Cohan, *John Cohen, J. Taylor, Abigail Teller, Ann Temkin, Katerina Thomas, Mimi Thompson, Ari Apollonia Colacicco, Linda Collins, Papo Colo, *Paula Cooper, Jeri Coppola, Philip Tiziani, Beau Torres, Hooper Turner, Jane Tylus, Diana Urbaska, Mary Valledor, Corner, Mary Croft, Patricia Cruz, Betty Cuningham, Kathy Curry, David Darts, Rio Valledor, Marjorie Van Cura, Jaap van Liere, *Kenneth van Sickle, Saskia Joan Davidson, Sasha Davis, Natalia de Campos, Jeanie Deans, Daphne Anderson Verlaan, Rashmi Viswanathan, Richard Wager, Dorsey Waxter, Joan Washburn, Deeds, Mary DelMonico, *Mark di Suvero, Jane Dickson, *Jim Dine, *Lois Dodd, Anne Waxman, James Wechsler, Adam Weinberg, Beth Weitzman, Claire Emmie Donadio, Geoffrey R. Dorfman, Julia Drayson, Rosalyn Drexler, Sherman Wesselmann, Walker West, *Roger Whidden, *Robert Whitman, Meghan Wilcox, Drexler, Sally Hazelet Drummond, Laurie Duke, Susan Dunne, Anita Duquette, Anthony Williams, Deborah Willis, Francesca Wilmott, Jane Wilson, Susanna Lauren Durling, *Martha Nilsson Edelheit, Aaron Ehrlich, Deborah Eigen, Letty Wilson, Janay Wong, Michèle Wong, Midori Yamamura, *Phyllis Yampolsky, Kara Lou Eisenhauer, *June Ekman, Michelle Elligott, Marie Evans, Miranda Fallon, Yeargans, *Lee-Andra Yeargans, Paul Yeargans, Bonnie Yochelson, Shauna Young, Kristina Felix, Ken Fernandez, *Jackie Ferrara, Kara Fiedorek, Ali Filippelli, *Virginia Zabriskie, Dorothy Zeidman, Lily Zhou, Robyn Zolnai, Adam Zucker, Michael Findlay, Eric Firestone, Susan Greenberg Fisher, Stephen Flavin, Dean David Zwirner Fleming, Matthew Flowers, Jozeph Forakis, Gia Forakis, *Sophie Forst, Simone Forti, Mary Frank, Eliza Frecon, *Tom Furst, Nicole Gallo, Charles Gallup, Dan *Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, MA; *The Allan Kaprow Papers, The Getty Geist, Charles Ginnever, Elizabeth Glassman, *Mildred and Arne Glimcher, Research Institute, Los Angeles; *Alexandre Gallery, New York; *the American Yaffa Golfinger, Helen Goodman,*Haniwa and Martin Gottlieb, Emily Graham, College of Greece, Athens; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Deborah Graifman, Garth Greenan, Flavia Grilli de Castro, *Red Grooms, *Mimi Washington, DC; Berry Campbell Gallery, New York; Betty Cuningham Gallery, Gross, Sally Gross, *Barbara Grossman, *Julia Gruen, *Agnes Gund, Gina C. Guy, New York; Bill Hodges Gallery, New York; *Boo-Hooray, New York; *Boris Lurie Oded Halahmy, Jodi Hanel, Bibbe Hansen, halley k. harrisburg, Steven Harvey, Art Foundation, New York; Bread and Puppet Theater, Glover, VT; Carroll Janis, Barbara Haskell, Carrie Haslett, Ann Hatch, Philip Douglas Heilman, Linda Inc., New York; *Castelli Gallery, New York; *Curtis Galleries, Inc., Minneapolis; Dalrymple Henderson, Geoffrey Hendricks, Jon Hendricks, Maddy Henkin, *DC Moore Gallery, New York; David Findlay Jr. Gallery, New York; DelMonico Martha Henry, Sari Henry, Susan Henry-Young, *Joan Herbst-Shapiro, Jean-Noël Books · Prestel, New York; *Eric Firestone Gallery, New York; Estate of Alfred Herlin, Patricia Hickson, Bill Hodges, Emma Holter, Ellen Holtzman, *Grace Jensen; *Estate of Allen Kaprow; *Estate of Dan Flavin; *Estate of Fay Lansner; Hopkins, Sue Horner, Andrew Hottle, Elizabeth Howard, Loretta Howard, Laura *Estate of John Gruen; *Estate of Lester Johnson; Estate of Martha Holmes; Hunt, Howard Hurst, Scott Hyde, Jon Ippolito, Carroll Janis, Sarvia Jasso, Jasper *Estate of Peter Moore; *Estate of Ronald Bladen; *Estate of Rudy Burckhardt; Johns, Josephine Johnson, *Wolf Kahn, Hazal Kamisli, Marilynn Karp, Alex *Estate of Stan VanDerBeek; *Estate of Tom Wesselmann; *Fales Library & Katz, Ira Kaufman, *Nathan Kernan, Bill King, Munira Khapra-Reininger, Special Collections, New York University, New York; *Flowers Gallery, New York; Jessica Kitz, John Klacsmann, Norman Kleeblatt, Allison Knowles, Kate Keller *FurstSearch LLC, Rockford, IL; *Garth Greenan Gallery, New York; George and Kobayashi, Charlotte Kohlberg, Takehisa Kosugi, Leslie Kriesel, Johan Kugelberg, Helen Segal Foundation, New York; *Hauser & Wirth, New York and Zurich; Yayoi Kusama, Susan Kutliroff, *Tadaaki Kuwayama, *Erik La Prade, Carlo M. *Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Ivan Lamagna, Heather Lammers, Noah Landfield, Alexandra Lane, Sandra Lang, Karp Archive, The Halle Institute, Emory University, Atlanta; Keith Haring Heidi Lange, *Erica Lansner, *Gabrielle Lansner, Robin Lawrence, Anne Le Roux, Foundation, New York; *L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, New York; Laura Jean-Jacques Lebel, Jeffrey Lee, Emmanuel LeFrant, Alfred Leslie, Sofía G. Rathe Fine Art, Dallas; *Light Cone, Paris; *Loretta Howard Gallery, New York; Letona, Susana Torruella Leval, Ellie Levitt, Virginia Liberatore, Laura Lindgren, Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York; *Magnum Photos, New York; *Martha Henry Thomas D. Looser, Nikki LoPinto, Thomas J. Loughman, Leslie Lowery, Rebecca Inc. Fine Art, New York; *McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; *Michael Rosenfeld Lowery, Amber Lynn, Danny Lyon, Ersang Ma, Michaeleen Maher, Marcia Gallery, New York; The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, New York; Marcus, Alexis Marelo, Karen Marks, *Julie Martin, *Emily Mason, Sarah Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, MN; *Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York; Mastrangelo, Mehdi Matin, Gloria McDarrah, Tim McDarrah, Lindsay McGuire, *Moe’s Meat Market Gallery, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Maureen McLaughlin, Thomas McNulty, *Tamara Melcher, Karla Merrifield, *Museum of Modern Art, New York; *Myron Kunin Collection of American Ivana Mestrovic, Fernanda Meza, Jay Milder, Kristin Miller, Ally Mintz, *Michele Art, Minneapolis; *National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Mirisola, Ronald Mirvis, Lucy Mitchell-Innes, Barbara Moore, Ben Morea, Robert Wilberforce, OH; *New York Public Library, Photography Collection, New York; Morris, Tanya Morrison, Sam Morse, Patty Mucha, Alison Mueller, *Maia Müller, *Pace Gallery, New York; Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York; *Paula Cooper Gallery, Adam Murphy, Lauren Murphy, Marcie Muscat, Forrest Myers, Tamar Nahmias, New York; Peter Forakis Foundation, Petaluma, CA; Philip Douglas Fine Art, Rakuko Naito, *Mica Nava, Joseph Newland, Louis Newman, Galini Notti, *Reneta New York; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York; *Ryan Lee Gallery, New Nunn, Kris Nuzzi, Lucy Oakley, Mary-Brett O’Bryan, *Claes Oldenburg, *Yoko Ono, York; *Sari Dienes Foundation, Pomona, NY; Scherman Foundation, New York; Joyce and Philip Orenstein, *Lynn Braswell Ortman, *Beau Ott, *Randy and *Spacetime C.C. Inc., New York; Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto; *Steven Harvey Sheila Ott, Fred Pajerski, Rajan Panchal, Felix Pasilis, *Peter Passuntino, Kristin Fine Art Projects, New York; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; *Uranian Phalanstery, New Patterson, Philip Pearlstein, Julia Pelta Feldman, Jessica Pepe, Christopher York; *Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; *Washburn Gallery, Phillips, Ozana Plemenitash, *Elaine Plenda, Barbara Pollitt, Larry Poons, New York; *Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; *Yale University Art Frank Poueymirou, Michael Pratt, *Kate Prendergast, *George Nelson Preston, Gallery, New Haven, CT L.G. + M.R. 14

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 14 12/13/16 2:16 PM public programs Unless otherwise noted, programs are free of charge, no reservations, capacity Film Screenings: John Cohen limited. All programs are subject to change. Photo ID required for entrance to Saturday, January 28–Sunday, January 29 NYU buildings. Information: greyartgallery.nyu.edu, [email protected], Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue 212/998-6780. John Cohen, photographer in Inventing Downtown, will introduce his films: Conversations @ Grey Art Gallery Saturday, 6:00 pm (65 min.): Dylan (first film footage of young Bob Dylan in Wednesdays, January 11 and March 1, 6:30 pm New York City); The High Lonesome Sound (music of rural poor in Kentucky); The End of an Old Song (ballad singers in North Carolina); Saturday, 8:00 pm With Melissa Rachleff, curator of the exhibition and clinical associate (60 min.): Musical Holdouts (survey of American traditional music); Sarah professor, MA Program in Visual Arts Administration (Steinhardt), NYU. and Maybelle (Carter family of country music); Sunday, 5:30 pm (95 min.): Wednesday, March 8, 6:30 pm Mountain Music of Peru (centuries-old music of the Andes); Carnival in Q’eros (Andean Indians); Sunday, 8:00 pm (90 min.): Roscoe Holcomb from Daisy With Noel Anderson, clinical assistant professor of printmaking, Art & Art Kentucky (banjo/guitar player and coal miner); and Visions of Mary Frank Professions (Steinhardt), NYU. (portrait of artist in Inventing Downtown). Wednesday, March 22, 6:30 pm Co-organized by Anthology Film Archives and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Tickets and With Brian Bentley, graduate curatorial assistant, Grey Art Gallery, and PhD complete film listings: anthologyfilmarchives.org. student, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. Film Screening: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16 Film Screenings: Aldo Tambellini Wednesday, February 1, 6:30 pm Tuesday, January 10 and Thursday, January 12 Michelson Theater, Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, Room 648 Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue Founded by Amos Vogel in 1947, the Cinema 16 film society attracted downtown Experimental short films, mostly from the 1960s, by Aldo Tambellini, artist artists to its landmark programs of documentary and avant-garde films— in Inventing Downtown. Tuesday, 7:30 pm (highlights): Black Film Series including the medley of shorts to be screened. Selected and introduced by Plus (includes opening of Black Gate Theatre, New York’s first “electromedia” Scott MacDonald, visiting professor of Art History, Hamilton College. space); Black Is (abstract images painted directly on clear film base); Black Co-sponsored by NYU’s Department of Cinema Studies (TSOA) and Grey Art Gallery. Trip 2 (American psyche seen through eye of a black man); Black Plus X (contemporary life in a black community); Blackout (crescendo of abstract Conversation: Ulrich Baer and Hasia R. Diner images); Soundblack (reverses soundtrack and optical); Proliferation of the Wednesday, February 8, 6:30 pm Sun (performance by Otto Piene); Black Out (performance by Tambellini); Center for the Humanities, 20 Cooper Square, Fifth Floor Thursday, 7:30 pm (90 min.): Black Video 2 (study of light and real-time transmission); Black Spiral (a modified television sculpture); Black TV Ulrich Baer, professor of German, Comparative Literature, and English, and (contemporary violence on TV); and Inauguration, from the series A Day in the vice provost for Faculty, Arts, Humanities & Diversity; and Hasia R. Diner, Life of Television—TV About TV. Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History and Director, Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History, both NYU, will Co-organized by Anthology Film Archives and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Tickets and discuss perspectives on the Holocaust in the postwar era. complete film listings: anthologyfilmarchives.org. Co-sponsored by NYU’s Center for the Humanities and Grey Art Gallery. Film Screenings: Inventing Downtown Friday, January 13–Sunday, January 15 Downtown Forever: Artists and Conservators in Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue Conversation Thursday, February 9, 6:00–8:00 pm Highlights of this four-part screening series include: Friday, 7:30 pm: Exhibition as Stage (100 min.): Meat Joy (Schneemann), What’s Happening The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, 526 LaGuardia Place (with Kaprow, LaMonte Young, Dick Higgins, et al.), and Doomshow Join artists and conservators in conversation about preserving their work (Wisniewski); Saturday, 5:00 pm: Lives of Artists 1 (90 min.): House of the and legacy. The discussion will consider works of art from the Renee & Chaim White People (Kuchar on Segal) and Kusama’s Self-Obliteration (Yalkut on Gross Foundation collection as well as featured objects from the artists’ studios. Kusama); Saturday, 7:30 pm: Lives of Artists 2 (110 min.): Encyclopedia of the Organized by the Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation and Voices in Contemporary Blessed (Kuchar on Grooms) and Hats, Bottles and Bones (Edelheit on Dienes); Art (VoCA), and co-sponsored by NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Sunday, 7:30 pm: Artists Make Movies (105 min.): The Last Clean Shirt (Leslie) Tickets $15: www.rcgrossfoundation.org/events. and The Medium Is the Medium (Kaprow, Paik, Tambellini, et al.). Information: [email protected], 212/529-4906. Co-organized by Anthology Film Archives and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Tickets and complete film listings: anthologyfilmarchives.org. Revisiting the 1960s, Globalization, Monopoly, and Art Outlaws: Yayoi Kusama and the Rise of the Outliers, Mavericks and Risk-takers: The Emergence and Leo Castelli Gallery Legacy of Downtown Monday, February 13, 7:00 pm Thursday, January 19, 6:00–8:00 pm Silver Center, Room 300 (enter at 32 Waverly Place) The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), 421 Broome Street, Fourth Floor Artist Yayoi Kusama and art dealer Leo Castelli both launched their Examining downtown’s further evolution—from the opening of commercial careers in the multicultural downtown scene of the 1950s. In this lecture, art galleries in SoHo in the late 1960s to the emergence of the Lower East Side Midori Yamamura, JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow, The National Research Institute as a new art hub—this panel will focus on the adventurous risk-takers who for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, will examine how, with the rise of the global helped make downtown the epicenter of the New York art scene. Moderated by art market, Kusama’s work became marginalized—an experience that Grace Glueck, journalist, with speakers Betty Cuningham, Betty Cuningham distinctively shaped her art. Gallery; Eric Firestone, Eric Firestone Gallery; Michael Findlay, Acquavella Co-sponsored by NYU’s Department of Art History, Asian/Pacific/American Gallery; and Patricia Margarita Hernandez, P! Gallery. Institute, and Grey Art Gallery. Organized by the New York Foundation for the Arts, hosted by CIMA, and co- sponsored by the SoHo Arts Network and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Free of charge, reservations required: http://bit.ly/2f00VQR.

15

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 15 12/16/16 9:08 AM Reverberations: Historical and Art Historical Collisions Downtown on the Beach: Exploring 1950s–’60s Wednesday, February 15, 7:00 pm Provincetown Einstein Auditorium, Barney Building, 34 Stuyvesant Street Thursday, March 9, 6:00-8:00 pm (at 3rd Ave. and 9th St.) The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, 526 LaGuardia Place Exploring pressing social issues around art in New York during the 1950s In this panel discussion, artists will consider the vibrant Provincetown art and ’60s—a moment in American history that is both transitional and scene in the 1950s and after, focusing in particular on the Sun Gallery and transformative—this roundtable discussion will examine the proliferation of the HCE Gallery. Also included are a screening and discussion of Yvonne art and other visual images relating to the Holocaust, the Cold War, civil rights, Andersen’s documentary film The Sun Gallery Provincetown 1955–59 (13:48 free speech, and access to, separation from, and collision of public and private min.), and a viewing of newly discovered photographs by Marcia Marcus. space. Moderated by Norman Kleeblatt, Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator, Organized by The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation and co-sponsored by The Jewish Museum, with speakers Steven Nelson, professor of Art History, NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Tickets $15: www.rcgrossfoundation.org/events. General University of California at Los Angeles; Lisa Saltzman, professor of History of information: [email protected], 212/529-4906. Art, Bryn Mawr College; and Andrew Weiner, assistant professor of art theory and criticism in Art & Art Professions, NYU. Walking Tour: Exploring East Tenth Street and Beyond Co-sponsored by NYU’s Departments of Art & Art Professions (Steinhardt) and Saturday, March 25, 11:00 am Hebrew & Judaic Studies; and Grey Art Gallery. Meeting place will be sent to ticketholders Conversation: John Cohen and Thomas Crow Grey Art Gallery staff member Lucy Oakley, head of education and programs, Wednesday, February 22, 7:00 pm and Grey interns will lead a walking tour of East Tenth Street and environs, focusing in particular on the sites of artist-run galleries in Inventing Downtown Silver Center, Room 300 (enter at 32 Waverly Place) and evoking the rich cultural landscape of avant-garde New York during the John Cohen, photographer, musician, filmmaker, artist, and professor 1950s and early ’60s. emeritus of visual arts, SUNY Purchase College; and Thomas Crow, Rosalie Organized by NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Tickets $5: http://bpt.me/2711732. Solow Professor of Modern Art, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and author of The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design 1930–1995, will discuss Cohen’s role Alt O’Hara: Coterie and Counter-Institution in the downtown art and music scene in the 1950s and early ’60s. Wednesday, March 29, 7:00 pm Co-sponsored by NYU’s Departments of Art History and Photography & Imaging, Silver Center, Room 300 (enter at 32 Waverly Place) Institute of Fine Arts, and Grey Art Gallery. Placing Frank O’Hara’s writing in relation to the development of alternative Exhibition, Environment, Performance art galleries in the early 1960s, this lecture by Lytle Shaw, professor of English, Tuesday, February 28, 6:30 pm NYU, will explore the ways that O’Hara’s cultivation of a coterie served an analogous function in terms of both the social world and literary history. NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 LaGuardia Place Co-sponsored by NYU’s Department of English and Grey Art Gallery. This roundtable discussion will consider how artists in New York expanded both modes of artmaking and varieties of presentation in the alternative art spaces of the 1950s and ’60s. Moderated by Bruce Altshuler, director of Museum Studies, NYU, with speakers Claire Bishop, professor of Art History, ALSO ON VIEW The Graduate Center, CUNY; André Lepecki, associate professor of Performance John Cohen: The 10th Street Art World, 1957–1963 Studies, NYU; Julie Martin, director, Experiments in Art and Technology L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, 764 Madison Avenue (E.A.T.); and artists Red Grooms, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Whitman. On view December 2, 2016–February 11, 2017 Co-sponsored by NYU’s MA Program in Museum Studies, Department of Information: lparkerstephenson.nyc, [email protected], 212/517-8700 Performance Studies (TSOA), MA Program in Visual Arts Administration (Steinhardt), and Grey Art Gallery. Free of charge, tickets required: greyartgallery.nyu.edu/programs Boris Lurie (1924–2008), Life After Death Artist Collectives Today Westwood Gallery, 262 Bowery Friday, March 3, 6:30–8:00 pm Curated by James Cavello in collaboration with the Boris Lurie Art Foundation Einstein Auditorium, Barney Building, 34 Stuyvesant Street On view January 6–February 18, 2017 (between 3rd Ave. and 9th St.) Reception: Thursday, January 12, 6:00–8:00 pm Information: www.westwoodgallery.com, [email protected], In this panel discussion, speakers will focus on how artist collectives today 212/925-5700 are advocating for artists’ rights, and how artists and galleries are working to prevent the displacement of longtime neighborhood residents, businesses, and Building Identity: Chaim Gross and Artists’ Homes & organizations. Moderated by ACE members, with speakers to be announced. Studios in New York City, 1953–1974 Organized by Advocates for Cultural Engagement (ACE) and co-sponsored by NYU’s The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, 526 LaGuardia Place MA Program in Visual Arts Administration (Steinhardt) and Grey Art Gallery. On view January 19–October 22, 2017 Reception: Thursday, February 16, 5:30–7:30 pm Conversation: Tenth Street Days Information: www.rcgrossfoundation.org, [email protected], Monday, March 6, 7:00 pm 212/529-4906 Einstein Auditorium, Barney Building, 34 Stuyvesant Street (between 3rd Ave. and 9th St.) Richard Tyler and the Uranian Press Moderator Irving Sandler, art historian and critic, in conversation with Printed Matter, 231 11th Avenue artists Lois Dodd and Philip Pearlstein, will reflect on their early days at the March 2017 Tanager Gallery. Information: www.printedmatter.org Co-sponsored by the Department of Art & Art Professions (Steinhardt) and Grey Art Gallery. The Emily Harvey Gallery, 1983–2004 The Emily Harvey Foundation, 537 Broadway

BACK COVER: Hale Woodruff, Blue Intrusion, 1958 (detail). Oil on canvas, 70 × 40 in. Curated by Agustin Schang and Christian Xatrec (177.8 × 101.6 cm). Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection. Anonymous gift, On view: March 7–18, 2017 Reception: Tuesday, March 7, 6:00 pm 1958.35. Art © Estate of Hale Woodruff/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Information: http://www.emilyharveyfoundation.org

16

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 16 12/13/16 2:16 PM SUGGESTED READINGS

Altshuler, Bruce. Avant-Garde in Exhibition: New Art in the 20th Century. Perl, Jed. New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century. New York: Vintage, 2005. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Rachleff, Melissa. Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, Bard, Joellen. Tenth Street Days: The Co-ops of the 50’s. New York: Education, 1952–1965. New York: Grey Art Gallery and DelMonico Books Prestel, 2017. Art and Service, 1977. Robinson, Julia E., ed. New Realisms: 1957–1962: Object Strategies Between Crow, Thomas. The Rise of the Sixties. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Readymade and Spectacle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, and Madrid: Museo Glimcher, Mildred L. Happenings: New York, 1958–1963. New York: Monacelli Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2010. Press, 2012. Sandler, Irving. A Sweeper-Up After Artists: A Memoir. New York: Thames and Goldberg, RoseLee. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. New York: Hudson, 2003. Thames and Hudson, 2011. Stein, Judith E. Eye of the Sixties: Richard Bellamy and the Transformation of Karmel, Pepe, ed. New York Cool: Painting and Sculpture from the NYU Art Modern Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. Collection. New York: Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 2008. Taylor, Marvin J., ed. The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984. Kleeblatt, Norman, ed. Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning, and American New York: The Grey Art Gallery and The Fales Library and Special Art, 1940–1976. New York: Jewish Museum, and New Haven, CT: Yale Collections, New York University, and Princeton, NJ: Princeton University University Press, 2008. Press, 2006. La Prade, Erik. Breaking Through: Richard Bellamy and the Green Gallery, 1960–1965, Twenty-Three Interviews. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2010.

“A most companionable read, scholarly without ever being stuffy, Inventing Downtown is like one of the rare city gems that make NYC so magical. . . . Featuring a pantheon of grand heroes and a firmament of brilliant stars whose names have largely been lost to time, Rachleff delivers all the politics, personalities, and passions of an art world in dramatic transition.” —Carlo McCormick, senior editor, Paper, and culture critic — “Inventing Downtown is essential reading for anyone interested in the art world of New York.” —Mary Anne Staniszewski, co-author of Alternative Histories: New York Art Spaces, 1960 to 2010 — “ Melissa Rachleff has insightfully documented a unique period in modern art. . . . Fascinating and thought provoking.” —John Strausbaugh, author of The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues — “ This important book . . . is an outstanding account of artist-organized cooperative galleries and exhibition spaces.” —Bruce Altshuler, author of Biennials and Beyond: Exhibitions that Made Art History, 1962–2002

By Melissa Rachleff Preface and introduction by Lynn Gumpert Interviews by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin

296 pages. 225 color and black-and-white illustrations. 12 × 10 in. Hardcover. Published in 2017 by the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, Special 20% discount at the Grey Art Gallery: $60 and DelMonico Books · Prestel. ISBN: 978-3-7913-5558-0. Available at the gallery and online at greyartgallery.nyu.edu.

17

InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 17 12/13/16 2:16 PM InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 18 12/13/16 2:16 PM