Karen Wilkin: Critiquing the New Masters

So what are some of the things that maybe someone like Clement Greenberg taught you about art in general that maybe people may not know about? Or maybe there because there are a lot of stereotypes about who he was and and what he did.

The problem with Clem is that while he was a brilliant critic and a very good writer, he could be a truly loathsome human being. I think what put me over the edge was I was in Knoedler Gallery looking at something, and Clem came in. And I hear someone behind I didn't know it was Clem. And I hear somebody saying, I know those legs. And I thought, that's the only thing he can recognize in the yeah.

Hello, and welcome back to the Hyperallergic podcast. I'm Hanag Bartanyan, the editor in chief and cofounder of Hyperallergic. Today, we're talking with Karen Wilkin. She's the head of art history at the New York Studio School and also an incisive and thoughtful critic. She's a contributing editor for art at the Hudson Review and also contributes regularly to New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

Hi. It's a delight to see you.

Well, as

it was all those years

ago. All those years ago, right? I mean at this point, it's 30 years ago. Well, we won't say. Worst count. Yeah. That's right. Exactly. It was all it was all, another era. So I wanted to talk to you finally to a little bit about your life and and and the work you've done through the years.

Well, I'm a native New Yorker and a native Manhattanite,

which

is very rare.

Very rare. Was my father. And you still are in Manhattan.

I still am. I've lived in a lot of other places, but I came back in 86, and I'm not going anywhere. And they'll carry me out.

Right.

And my grandfather lived in Manhattan also. And grandparents lived in Manhattan. Although, they were not born here, they were born in what is now, Belarus.

Oh, wow.

So I have a a long history with Manhattan. I I come to Brooklyn, obviously.

Well, we thank you for that. And so what was man Manhattan like growing up? And what is a part of that history that I think people today may have may not know or may have lost knowledge of?

Well, anyone who's not as old as I am, and most people aren't these days, which comes as a shock, doesn't remember a time when New York City kids could travel around the city by themselves.

Right.

I mean, by the time I was in 6th grade, I I was a very serious, ballet student at that point, and I could travel to my ballet classes myself.

Wow.

And, you know, kids aren't allowed to do that anymore.

Right.

So and I wasn't the only one. My my friends from school and I would be traveling around. And when you are at an age when you're discovering the place you live, New York quite a wonderful place to do it.

I bet. And so if I remember, you grew up around where we call Turtle Bay nowadays, or where where did you where did you grow up?

Central Park West.

Oh, Central Park West. There we are.

There we

are. There we are.

Actually, when when we were moving back here, I was living in Toronto when my husband, who is an architect, decided that he didn't wanna work in Toronto anymore. He wanted to come come to New York. And I the only thing I said is I do not wanna live on the upper west side.

You were done.

I had had that.

You were done. It was it was it was it was finished for you.

Definitely.

So tell us a little bit about those those years. Where where were your first experiences with art?

Well, my parents collected a little bit.

Okay.

In fact, I inherited a very, very beautiful Alfred Maurer gouache from them. They had friends who collected. I also inherited an early Kandinsky woodcut, which they had been given by another friend. Mostly, they had writer friends. And that means every single bookcase I have is double loaded because I have two copies of everything by my parents' friends, one dedicated to them and one dedicated to me. Aw. And I've gotta do something about that.

Yeah. That's well, that's that's that's kind of beautiful.

A lot of writers and, but I wasn't allowed to go to museums.

Why?

My parents didn't think that children should go to museums. So by the time that I finally got to go to a museum, I really wanted to be there.

Wait. So why would they think is it because of the nudity? Was it I mean No.

I think they probably thought children in museums were annoying to other people as you know they are.

Well, that's kinda true, isn't it? Oh. Though I think museums have changed a lot since then.

They have. They have. But, no, I remember being finally allowed to I mean, I I wasn't, you know, old. I must have been, what, 8, 10, something like that. But younger than that, I wasn't allowed to go. It was a Mattish show at MoMA. Oh, wow. I was ravished.

Wow. That's quite a quite a wonderful first exhibition. Yep. Do you what do you remember about that show?

I can still see those pictures, but I don't know whether it's because I know them now.

You know? Right.

Because I've I've spent so much time looking at Matisse. Yep. Because I remember when John Elderfield did the incredible 1992 show when he filled the whole building with Matisse, the day of the press preview, there were the bunch of us standing outside champing at the bit and ran in. And, you know, like, 6 hours later, I came out. And I remember a totally involuntary thought as I walked out. I haven't wasted my life.

Wow. I love that.

Oh, that that was an amazing show.

So what were some of the first reactions? Were you like, wow. I can't wait to go back? Do you think like, what

I was very excited about it. I also thought I wanna try to do that.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And so MoMA at that time was much smaller.

Much smaller. Not only was MoMA much smaller, but pursuant to what I was saying about kids being allowed to travel around New York by themselves, my friends and I from high school and maybe maybe even from elementary school, we would go. And I knew every inch of that place. I knew where everything was in the old building.

Wow.

We all did.

That's amazing. So now There

were never any people. You could go and sit in front of the, Monet Water Lilies by yourself forever.

And not anymore. Not anymore. Not anymore.

So get me started on MOMA and the permanent collection.

I will get you started. If you wanna talk about it, I would love to. But It's

an abomination, really.

I'm with you. It's an airport, honestly. It feels like an airport to me.

Well, there's no coherence. No. And it I mean, that's built in. The new Dillard and Scofidio galleries all have multiple doors.

Right.

So there's no preferred pathway. There's no sequence. And there's no relationship from gallery to gallery. So it's chaos.

So fast forward a little bit. In high school, how did your relationship to art change?

I went to the High School of Music and Art, which is now part of LaGuardia.

Mhmm.

Then it was a very rigorous academic school that had extra programs or extra classes in either music or art. And LaGuardia was the amalgamation of music and art with performing arts

Mhmm.

Which was always considered a vocational school.

Right.

So the academic standards were different. Got it. And in fact, now the alumni association has some die hards from the old days who were, you know, trying to keep it up.

And where was LaGuardia then?

Then it was on the City College campus.

Oh, got it.

It was a a building with towers

Mhmm.

And a sort of neo gothic

Right.

And a big bust of fille arla la Guardia in the lobby. And an absolutely amazing group of kids.

I mean So high school for you was sort of a lot of exposure to the arts.

Absolutely.

And painting was an integral part of that?

You had well, you painted the first semester. Oh. And then they figured, well, you've gotten that desire to use paint and color out of your system. Now we'll get serious. Wow. So after that, there were drawing. There was a design course taught by a woman who had been at the Bauhaus

Wow.

And who we would put the we'd have these Bauhaus exercises of design. And she had exactly two things that she said when the work went out for group crit. It was either profoundly beautiful or utterly without merit, and there was nothing in between.

Do you remember her name?

Missus Ridgeway. Ridgeway? Ridgeway. Ridgeway.

Yeah. Wow. And she was she was, She

had been at the Bauhaus.

That's amazing.

There was another teacher who had been a Hoffman student.

Wow.

That's incredible. Place.

I bet. It sounds like it. So now how about the museums? Were you starting to go to museums then? Were you the Whitney, the Met? I mean

Well, the Whitney was very conveniently back to back with, MoMA at that point.

Right.

Briefly before it moved up to the Brier building. Mhmm. I I don't I never visited it on eighth Street where I now spend half my life because I teach at the New York Studio School, but you could go from MOMA into the Whitney. Just they were back to back.

Yeah. And how about the Met? What was your experience with the Met?

It was also a place where you knew where everything was.

Right. Yeah. And you had a favorite room, favorite artworks?

I remember always being fascinated by the Venetian rooms. I apparently had been taken when I was still, you know, a toddler by my father to the Greek and Roman wing, and I can still see what that looked like with the, with like a Pompeian villa with sculpture in it. And I always wanted to go back to that. Well, of course, it wasn't there. They turned it into a restaurant.

Right.

And they've it only, what, 10, 15 years ago went back to being the Roman installation, but it's not quite the same as I remember.

No. I can imagine. So what was your first experience with art criticism? Do you remember when that was or who it was or what the show might have been?

Well, we were definitely reading things at Music and Art. There was an art history course. And it was, you know, pretty basic. I mean, there there were these kind of we all had these jokes we made about it because the person who taught it would say always say the same thing, which is, you know, Assyrian temples were huge affairs. You know? That was all he ever said about a Syrian temple.

And so then you went to Barnard knowing what you wanted to study, or did you have any inkling?

Yes and no. I mean, one of the reasons that I wanted to go to Barnard, and I'd gotten into a couple of other places, was I wanted to stay in New York because I was dancing very, very seriously.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Oh, right. So Yeah. You were one of the Balanchine pinheads as used to joke. I'm saying it because used to use that joke.

Right? Well, you know, I had the bird bones, and I was very flexible, and I was pretty good at it. My feet could have been better, but I was good enough at it that I was in the most advanced class by the time I was in Barnard. And I still don't know how I did this. I would go to a 9 o'clock class at Barnard. I have my dance clothes under my clothes. I get in the subway. The School of American Ballet at that point was on 82nd Street and Broadway Mhmm. Where Barnes and Noble is now.

Got it.

On the second floor. And every time I go to the second floor of that Barnes and Noble, it's like, oh, yeah. That was dressing room 1. That was studio 1. That was studio 2. That hasn't changed. They've taken the partitions down.

Right.

So I would then have a class. I go back to Barnard. I have a couple more classes. I'd come back for another class, and then I go do my homework. Why I didn't die, I don't know.

So what was it about ballet that appealed to you so much?

Everything. And it was the most, absolutely extraordinary discipline. And you're aspiring to an abstract ideal.

Mhmm.

Somebody one of the dance critics, I forget which one, wrote, the arabesque is real, the leg is not, which says it all, the the abstraction.

Yeah.

It was a world apart from anything else. Certainly, when I was younger, it was it was my salvation because, you know, I was skinnier and smarter than most of the kids I was going to elementary school with, which is not a good thing. Yeah.

So you you were able to pour some of your energy into that and your intelligence. Yeah. And so tell me a little bit about the instructors in in They were

all Russians.

Really?

Except for Muriel Stewart, who had been one of Pavlova's little girls.

Mhmm.

She was British. I didn't really like her classes as much as the Russians. The Russians' English was slightly limited, shall we say, so they'd hit, which was fairly effective.

Okay.

There was a madame Tunkovsky who taught the ferocious point class, and she lived on and on and on. And when I moved back to New York in 86, she was still teaching ferocious point classes that I would go and watch, and she was still saying exactly the same thing after the girls would do one of the combinations. She would say, very bad and terrible, do again.

That was a good accent.

I had a lot of Russians to listen to. I also had a Russian speaking grandmother.

Right? So then I love that. So the so that was sort of one of the places where, artistically, you also grew. Dance has been in movement. I I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence that sculpture has been something you've written extensively about. It's connected to that. Right?

Right. Yeah. I mean, the the sense of I mean, Balanchine technique and I'm probably gonna get bore very boring here. Balanchine technique, which is like nothing else, partly because of its speed, but it's based on a very tight fifth position from which everything is very clearly articulated in 3 dimensions. And I am absolutely sure that is what I learned, and that's how I can look at sculpture.

Yeah. I mean, I could see that. I mean, I I've definitely, through the years, picked up, I was like, like, It's the way that movement in space is very interesting to you, and I love that.

And with with some artists like, Caro, there's always you experience many of the works kinetically. You're you you feel that extension in space.

Smith.

With Smith, it's incredibly important what's in front of what.

Mhmm.

Even though his work is always described as pictorial and flat, it isn't.

Right. David

Smith. Absolutely. Those subtle three-dimensionalities. And, I probably shouldn't say this in public, but my distinguished colleague, Michael Branson, who wrote a brilliant biography of Smith in terms of the history Mhmm. And quoted people that it's just marvelous to be able to read, like his first wife, Dorothy Dehner, or his second wife.

Right.

Like Giacometti or Magdalena Bakanovic.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think like artists, writers, I mean, sometimes they're stronger in certain parts than others and I think we all accept that and that's why we read each other. Yeah. You know, it's like sometimes it's true for And I

don't think michael ever danced.

Yeah. That's right. There we are. So at Barnard what do did you start developing an interest in writing about the arts?

Yes. But it took a while. I mean, I was I did a a very advanced medieval French class the 1st year because my French was very good. I thought maybe that's where I would, end up. Barnard at that time was half the size it is now. It's still a very small school. But in those days, classes of 4 were not unusual.

Really?

Terrifying, but not unusual. No place to hide. I remember one Italian class that had 3. Yeah.

And and who are some of your professors there?

Well, the the ones that I ended up getting really close to were the, for the most part, the art history professors, and that was the great, great scholar of, Northern Renaissance art, Julius Held, the great authority on Rubens, as he pronounced it, and Vermeer and, Rembrandt. He was totally inspiring. Somehow without there being great examples of, Holben's in New York City, he turned us all into passionate admirers of that artist. And, of course, when we all got to Europe, we had our lists of what we had to go see. You know about that.

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And he he remained a very close friend.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Which was wonderful. In fact, my husband and I took him to lunch about a week before he died

Oh, wow.

At 90 7.

Was anybody teaching about modern or or what

Barbara Novak was teaching American art, which was a brand new field at that point, and she was young. She's still with us. In fact, I should call her. She's 90 something, I think. She was married to Brian O'Doherty, who at that point was the critic for The Times.

Wow.

Of things that now I think about it. How did he get to borrow these things? We had Pollock. We had Klein. We had Motherwell. We had just just hanging up there.

Unbelievable. And

there was elicited a lot of discussion about, you know, figuration versus nonfiguration. It was a pretty amazing department at that time.

I bet.

There was but but the when you asked about contemporary art, you could not write your undergraduate thesis about a living artist unless you related that artist to a historical artist.

Wow. Things have changed. Things have changed. Very much so. Yeah. And so who were some of the artists that stood out for you the most at that time? Or that maybe you were at you that opened your eyes to new ways of seeing?

Well, my father and Adolf Gottlieb were very good friends. My father was Adolf Gottlieb's physician. They were the same height.

Wow.

I think they may even have been the same age, and

they

were very close. And so he was the real the first I won't say real artist, but he was the first really celebrated artist whose studio I visited. And that became that was something I did when I first started working as a curator.

Amazing.

Go and and do the first museum show of his pictographs because he had access.

Wow. And where was his studio then?

It was then on the Bowery. And what do you remember

about that?

It was this former Bowery Bank. Mhmm. There were several other artists in there. He was he was very generous. We looked at a lot of work. At that point, however, he'd had a stroke and was in a wheelchair. And what was very exciting was, I went around with him at it turned out to be his last show. It was, in the Fuller Building.

Mhmm.

It was one of the big international gallery, and we went around, looked at those paintings, which were ones that he had had the ground laid in by an assistant whom he called my good left hand. And so the the the drawing was somewhat tremulous. They were really beautiful paintings. Mhmm. And it was very exciting to go around with him.

So what did you learn from him?

Well, I he was so, matter of fact about the way he talked about the work, you know, how it was made, what he had done.

Right. And and so was that I mean, you know, abstract art was sort of still being debated in the public comments in a way.

It certainly wasn't my parents' living room when I

It was.

When I was, in high school.

Really? Yeah. And so what were some of the conversations

that you're hearing? Someone would always say, well, Picasso can draw. You

know? Right.

And because my parents had friends who collected more, more seriously than my parents, but they they were buying well, they they were buying mauer. Both of them were buying mauer, and I was allowed to go along when my parents bought their mauer at Bertha Schaeffer Gallery.

Mhmm.

And they narrowed it down to a head and a still life, still life with a doily. And they were dithering, and I said, why don't we get both? And he always shut up, kid. Well, I'm living with the head. It's beautiful, but I can still see the damn doily fading.

I love that.

And it my parents' friends also had Karl Knaths, and I am extremely grateful that my parents were not interested. And it had had very beautiful little Gottlieb burst, which I'm still living with.

Beautiful.

So, but I know it was always, I remember overhearing those conversations and there was a lot of emphasis placed on ability to draw.

Right. That makes sense from that era. So in college, did you start thinking maybe art is what I wanna do? Curating, writing.

Well, you have to declare your major by, the end of the 2nd year.

Got it.

You could also I think it's still true. If something isn't offered at Barnard, you can take it at Columbia. Mhmm. And there was an amazing course taught by someone called, Morton was a surname, intellectual history of the ancient, Mediterranean world. And it started with Gilgamesh, and it went on from there.

So how's your Acadian?

It isn't. Anyway but by that time, I was getting very interested in the art history courses. And you could also there was a the head of the department was a woman called Marion Lawrence, who was a medievalist. Julius Held later described her as a woman who had devoted her life to scholarship and lost all human qualities in the process.

That's

hilarious. Would lecture from notes that

That could describe a lot of scholars, unfortunately.

But she would lecture from notes that crumbled as she turned the page.

Oh, wow.

And it's a great course. It was a year long course in medieval art.

Right.

The art was great, but you could also, if you got permission of the instructor to as an undergraduate, take anything in the graduate school except the seminars. And I knew Meyer Shapero was across the street. So so the A

great art historian.

The great art historian. And he taught early Christian art. He taught impressionism. He did you name it. He was a complete polymath. And I was able to study with him starting from when I was an undergraduate. Whew.

Well, that seems pretty special.

It was.

And what were some of the courses you took away?

Oh, I took early Christian art. I took impressionism. I took

Any modernism or modern art?

The most modern course was the impressionism. Really? Yeah. That he was he he would just choose what he was teaching.

Oh, was anybody teaching early like early 20th century or

No. Ted Reff.

Okay.

That's a whole other story. He would prey on Barnard girls, so I definitely didn't wanna take his

course. Yikes. Yeah. That that's a whole part of the story. It probably isn't true.

Times were very different then.

Yeah. I bet.

I mean, there are quite a number of people teaching that would, you know, now be in jail.

I bet. And what was it like being a woman in the field, you know, or being a woman sort of studying these, like, you know, our life our world is gendered. And at that time, I'm guessing that probably played a role.

Well, I discovered long after I graduated, I was told that I was the brightest arts to art history student they had ever had. But I wasn't getting any of the recommendations for the fellowships or the internships. Wow. I later discovered that my male colleagues were getting preferential treatment.

Of course, they were, unfortunately.

On the other hand, one who was a good friend ended up teaching at Emory, which was not really one of my aspirations.

Right. Okay.

I was also doing non credit art courses, and Stephen Green was teaching

Oh, wow.

Who was an extraordinary guy, and he became a very good friend. And his daughter, Allison

Who's a curator? Is

yeah. Allison blames me. She says she became a curator because of me.

Right.

She's like family.

Yeah. She was at, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Right. Exactly. That's wonderful.

Our parents were friends, you know, with that kind of thing.

Oh, wow. But Allison always

looks like family.

So what was Stephen Green as a as a teacher?

He was extraordinary.

And what was he teaching?

He was teaching drawing.

He was teaching drawing. Wow. A drawing course. Amazing. And he was a teacher for a lot of important artists.

Oh, yeah. Well, I my whole relationship with Frank Stella

Right.

Hinged on the fact that I had been close to Steven.

Makes sense.

And it would that was why Frank took me seriously.

Wow.

After Steve died, the Addison did a a show at Frank's insistence honoring

Steve. That's right.

And we did he asked me if I'd do the show, which, of course, I was happy to do. Steve had done a last series of drawings that were absolutely ravishing, very mysterious, very, very subtle.

So when you left Barnard, what happened? How did you

Well, I I did an MFA,

first

of all.

An MFA in studio art? Or which yeah.

Okay. Also doing a lot of the art history as well. Mhmm. Rudolf Bittcover was teaching baroque. That's right. I was working with Shapiro. I was working with I mean, the the MFA really was a way of not having to write the whole thesis because it had suddenly dawned on me, you know, that Rudolph Beck cover doesn't care whether I can identify these ceiling frescoes. And I had a Fulbright to Rome, so I went to Rome.

And was that your first time in Rome? No. It wasn't?

A couple of summers, I'd been involved with the Spoleto Festival

Mhmm.

When it was still the Spoleto Festival. I I was very close to Samuel Barber.

K.

That was my education in modern music.

Fantastic way to learn modern music.

Yeah. I was Sam's beard. Why he thought going around with a 19 year old would confuse anybody.

Well, it probably it probably did.

Nice for me. But we would go to these he felt he had to go to all these modern music concert concerts. And one piece, the duration of the note was given, but the value wasn't.

Mhmm.

So everybody was playing whatever at the same time. And then the next piece, the value of the note was given, but the duration wasn't.

Right.

So the effect was more or less the same.

And in that era, I mean, one thing, that I've always appreciated about you, and you were one of the first people to be like this with me, which was there were gay and lesbian people in your life throughout his throughout your life.

Always.

Always. And, you know, I don't know how rare you realize that is for a lot of people. And I'm wondering, you know

I do because I live worked in Western Canada

Right.

For a while. It's a long story, but I ended up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada working at a museum where I was able to do things I would never have been able to do anywhere else. I give you that. Yep. With a pretty good acquisition budget, there were, a pair of female architects, obviously a lesbian couple.

Mhmm.

Nobody mentioned it. And then the most egregious of this was a one of the wealthiest people in town with an enormous, gorgeous house, an elderly woman with a very devoted son who, you know, organized all her bridge parties, and then she died. And the son inherited the house. And people were saying quite seriously, isn't it nice that that lovely young man has come to share that great big house with x? He would have been so, so lonely there by himself.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Right. Right.

Really?

Right. Right. Right.

They were serious.

Yeah. So what was that like be you know, because it was still a stigma, very much so in society, in the media. But to be around, you know, sort of a lot of different types of people, sexual minorities in different ways, I mean, how would you describe that?

I it just wasn't an issue. I mean, there were some things I look back on that are kind of strange. We had neighbors in the country, a doctor whom my father had gone to medical school with, and their property adjoined the property of our country house. We had a path that went back and forth. His wife was my my father's gardening buddy.

Yeah.

Beautiful fabrics. And which apparently they sold at Altman's. And a 1000 years later, I did a Stuart Davis show for the Cape Ann Historical Society, which has a collection, a great big big pieces of Folly Cove fabric that you can flip through. And I looked through the thing, and I realized that that was what was in the house

and my parents' friends. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that's Amazing.

So and and they had a great friend, a nice young man, who used to come and stay with them all the time, who was devoted to them both.

Right. So it was part of your life throughout your life, and it was very normal.

Question. Jerry Robbins was a good friend.

Right. Uh-huh. That's amazing. So now after college, what was the first show you curated or wrote about?

Well, it took me a while. I was in Rome. I got married in Rome, which seemed like a good idea at the time. My only excuse is that I was young. And that's how I ended up in Edmonton

Right.

Because he was from Edmonton. And what saved my life was working at what is now the Art Gallery of Alberta.

Right.

Then the Edmonton Art Gallery. I was teaching at the University of Alberta, being the most junior person on staff who was constantly being told, no, you can't use the senior calming room. That's only for faculty.

Wow. Okay.

It was a long time ago. I got stuck with the adult art appreciation course, which I taught. And the second time I did it, there was the same couple who had taken it the first time, who were on the board of the Edmonton Art Gallery, which had just built a new building Mhmm. And had a director chief curator who they had just fired because he organized an exhibition in which one of the artists had a performance which consisted of sitting on what was called the high level bridge over the river Mhmm. And throwing cornflakes off it.

Right.

They took me to see the then president of the board of the Edmonton Art Gallery. He had a Jack Bush that just knocked me out. Now at the time, I'd only seen about 5 Jack Bushes, but I was able to say to this collector, this is the best Jack Bush I've ever seen. It actually still is one of the jack best Jack Bushes I've ever seen. Well, he thought I was incredibly perceptive.

That's amazing. Yeah. So wow. And

And that saved my life. I mean, if I were if I hadn't been doing that, I think I would have slipped my wrist.

So at this point, I'm gonna mention that my first exposure to you was at the University of Toronto teaching art criticism, but you also taught a class about Jack Bush, you know, or a workshop workshop.

They were working on the beginning of the catalog resume, which all these years later is finally being published.

Right. Yes. And I do remember because I was doing research on the Clement Greenberg archive for that project Yeah. And his correspondence. And it was with you I visited Clement Greenberg's old apartment on Central Park West. I mean, he had passed at that point, but his wife, Janice. Jenny. I'm sorry. Jenny, was there.

Was Janice, but she was called Jenny. Got it.

And I remember visiting his apartment with you, and, I remember that experience. Do you wanna talk a little bit about your relationship with Clement Greenberg?

Vexed. I mean, I was I was very thrilled to meet him. I'd read his writing. He was very impressive

Mhmm.

Intellectually. I that apartment, as you know, it probably still had some of that wonderful

art. It was all full of it, actually. It was all there. The number 1, the old Noland 1 was there. They were all there Yeah. Still.

I mean, gradually, things were he would sell things when he needed money. He wasn't sentimental about these things at

all. Right.

I was fortunate enough to go, sometimes to museums with him, to studios with him, where he was absolutely pure. I mean, he would just respond to what was in front of him with no preconception. And while an artist was changing what was going to be in front of him, he'd look away. He'd look out the window or look at a wall so that when he turned to look at whatever it was, it was an immediate look. He would sometimes say you're ahead of me there.

Interesting.

Let it cook. Yeah. So all the things about his telling people what to do are just not true.

Yeah. That became kind of like a, I don't know, a stereotype. Right?

Oh, yeah.

That around this idea that he was telling artists what to do.

I mean, everything he wrote has its very authoritative sound, but you what you have to remember is every single one of these begins with a tacit in my experience.

Right.

He's trying to be faithful to what he saw being led by his eye. And what he frequently said at talks, and I'm sure you've heard him or you've read this, he would say that if he'd had his druthers, that was one of his phrases, the best art of his time would have been representational.

Right.

But his, what he was seeing told him it wasn't.

Right. So he was willing to sort of, you know, look and see something that he didn't necessarily expect.

He wanted to see something he didn't necessarily expect. Now things change late in life. He was drinking much more, and I think at that point, he was looking for something. You know, he went with expectations. But when I first knew him, he wasn't like that. And it was I learned a lot from him.

So what are some of the things you learned from him?

Well, to to deal exactly with what was was in front of you rather than to expect it to look somewhat.

Or prescribed

something. Prescribed in any way.

Right.

And there would be discussions sometimes in the studio because there are often more than one person in the studio. And I'd also I've also, for God, since 1982, been involved with an international program for artists that the sculptor, Antoni Caro

Right.

Started, which, in their part of the program is what was called a workshop, which was like master classes

for artists. Triangle.

Triangle. Exactly. Which is still going strong.

Yep. It's it's headquartered in Dumbo, actually.

It's headquartered in Dumbo.

Yeah. And triangle, of course, for those who don't know, it was sort of was it, like, US, Canada, UK? Was that the triangle the original triangle? Right.

Well, by year 2, we had a French artist and a South African artist. Now I don't know what you'd call

Right. Right. Right.

I think 65 or more countries.

Amazing.

Every continent except Antarctica.

Right.

And one of the artists went to Antarctica on the that British Antarctic survey thing where they send an artist.

So you got it.

So we got it.

But you were also involved with Emma Lake workshops.

I was a visitor at Emma Lake

Right.

As Clem was.

Right.

As everybody. Noland was there. Frank Stella was there.

And that was in Canada, and that was also an important workshop for a lot of, abstract painters. Correct? It was. And important workshop for a lot

of, abstract painters.

Correct? It was. You know?

And it was very important for Canadian art.

Yes. Absolutely.

Because, when they started inviting, major figures who came, The the story is the first one they invited was Barnett Newman.

Oh, wow.

And he as you know, Barnett Newman was a devout socialist and ran for some New York City government position on the socialist ticket. Didn't make it, but he ran for it. And he wanted to go to his the story is the first thing he said was, where the hell is Saskatchewan and who is Emma Lake? I don't know if that's apocryphal, but it's a good story.

Was it because of the socialist history of Saskatchewan?

Had a social credit government. He wanted to go see what it was like.

I think that is that's where, health universal health care in Canada started, I believe. Or was it Manitoba? I can't remember, but it was one of those. Yeah.

So that's why he went. Yeah. And then they kept inviting other people. The I've seen the notes of the first meeting when they decided let's invite somebody good, because originally, it was the the art teacher at the University of Saskatchewan who liked to fish in the summer. Right. And the students went up with him

Right.

Including Dorothy Knowles and Louis Perhutov and other luminaries of Canadian painting. But, aft they one of the people they thought of inviting was Picasso.

That didn't happen, I'm guessing. No.

But a lot of other people came after that. And working side by side with these, you know, pretty celebrated figures in the much smaller art world of those days, with artists from Saskatchewan, artists from Ontario, the it wasn't us and them anymore. I'm competing on the same Right.

As the world has

And it made huge difference.

I bet. I bet it brought up a lot. So what are some of the things that, you you know, maybe someone like Clement Greenberg taught you about art in general that maybe people may not know about or maybe there because there are a lot of stereotypes about who he was and and what he did.

The problem with Clem is that while he was a brilliant critic and a very good writer, he could be a truly loathsome human being.

That's unfortunate.

He had a lot of not very nice characteristics. He would test people. He'd, you know, see how far he could push before you rebelled. He was I mean, I finally stopped talking to him because I couldn't I couldn't take the abuse anymore. Really? You know, there'd be some sort of talk, and at the end people would say, well, is there anyone writing now that you think is any good? And then he would name some of some male people who I knew weren't any good. And I'm not gonna name any names.

Sure.

There was an occasion when

And then he would never mention you. Never. Never. Right. And he never mentioned other women as well, it sounds like. No.

No. I mean, there was that famous, phrase of his, Jew, bitch, girl curators, which What? Yeah.

Are you kidding me?

I couldn't make that up. I grew up on the upper west side. You're not allowed to say things like that.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

The bane of the art world, he said.

Really? My my oh my.

But, you know, there'd be things like, at one point he he said, oh, I have a confession to make to you. There was a an exhibition at Duke University, from the collection of the Corcoran of, Abstract Expressionism. It must have gone beyond Abstract Expressionism because Helen Frankenthaler was in it anyway. He told me they had asked him about the list of people they wanted to invite. I was on it and a another woman, called Phyllis Tuckman Mhmm.

So yeah. I mean, I could see that also. That kind of, contrarian or or terrible attitude probably created a lot of enemies to you.

It certainly did.

As it probably should have in some way.

I mean, when I finally stopped talking to him, I think what put me over the edge was I was in Knoedler Gallery looking at something, and Clem came in. And I hear someone behind I didn't know it was Clem. And I hear somebody saying, I know those legs. And I thought, that's the only thing he can recognize in there. Yeah.

No way.

So I was hearing stories about what Clem was like as a child. Some of which have turned up in a biography. Apparently, he bludgeoned a goose to death with a shovel as a child.

That's unusual.

Yes. And I was curious enough about this when I was still talking to him to ask him about it. And he said, you've been talking to Sonia. Well, I had, actually. And then he said, well, that goose reminded me of my father.

Woah.

Now I should say that, Clem's brother, Marty, who was a writer, was one of the nicest, kindest, loveliest human beings on this planet. Yeah. And, his daughter, Sarah, is also a lovely, brilliant, delightful person.

Right. Well, to say, sometimes, different siblings in the same family show up very, very differently in the world for different reasons. So wow. Well, I mean, you are a brilliant writer, so I don't know what he was saying. But,

Well, he did use to say that I handled the language well.

Oh, okay. I guess that that's his way of giving a compliment. Right? So who were some of the people that did inspire you to, you know, to write more or you felt you were in dialogue with?

You know, I grew up reading the New Yorker cover to cover. Mhmm. You started with I started with the cartoons. Then when I could read more, I read the little there used to be those hilarious squibs at the end of the articles, you know, sort of weird things that got printed. And I think reading the prose in the New Yorker when I was growing up, which included J.

Right.

My godmother was the humorist, Ruth McKenney, who wrote the Sister Eileen stories.

Amazing.

So I had and, SJ Perlman was a family friend, so we had all those books.

Quite a literary circle around your parents.

Literary.

Yeah. How did that happen? How how do you how do you think

I don't know. My parent these were my parents' friends. You know? I don't know how my parents can be people.

Do you know how they met

them? You know, it may have been partly because they were patients of my father's Right.

Got it.

Who was a, very, very literate man who also was very, very knowledgeable about music.

I mean,

I don't think anything ever, you know, would be in the car, QXR would be playing. There was never anything that he couldn't tell you what it was.

Wow.

So and my mother was, you know, a very intelligent, well educated woman who never did anything, which is tragic.

So were there any books that were really formative for you in early or even even college or early part of your art art career?

Well, I I read, believe it or not, Andre Malhot was very you know, the

Of course.

That was a very important book when it first came out. Which one? The Voices of Silence Oh, of course. Which is one about museum the idea of the museum without walls Yes. Which is certainly current now.

Yeah. Absolutely. It's very prescient.

Yeah. I read Greenberg pretty much as soon as as art and culture was published. I was reading some of the magazines. Mhmm. So I read Michael Fried early on. I knew that was lumpy prose. He's better now. Much better now.

But important ideas.

Very important.

Very. Yeah. I've read a lot of fiction in those days. Any favorite books?

Well, when I was I mean, some of these, that's one I want to admit. I remember when I read the Alexandrian quartet,

the one with Darryl,

I was just swept away.

I mean, it's a beautiful series.

Yeah. It's I don't think I could reread it now, but No.

I don't think I could either, but I I remember the first time I read that too.

I just got knocked out by it. But mind you, when I was 17 and I read Thomas Wolfe for the first time, I was knocked out by that, and I could never read that again.

So I have to ask you about his painted word because when that came out years years later

I thought that was hilarious.

Yeah. I know.

Tom Wolfe.

Oh, Tom.

The novelist.

Oh, the novel. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I messed

that up. Book, Look Homeward. Angel

Got it.

Ken Knowles' grandfather is a cat a character.

No way.

Yeah. He's the, I think, undertaker who has the, a surrogate, like the giant doll that

he plays in. Wow. Okay. I got the mixed up apologies.

Two very different.

Yes. Very different. Very, very different.

John Wolf was great writing about things he hated. No. It's true. I mean, he he could turn a phrase. He could skew or something.

Right.

He was much less good on things he liked. And it is much easier to be clever about things you don't like. Yeah. Actually I feel very well known.

Yeah. Absolutely. This is kind of the way it is. Right? It's sort of like it's it's, you know, being over critical in a in a negative way can sometimes be, for a writer, it's kind of deadly to, like, lean into that too much. No. Don't you

think? But it can be fun.

Yeah. It can be fun. It's gonna be a lot of fun, but it definitely is not necessarily the best way to do your thing. That's funny.

But you you asked me what I learned from Greenberg. I think the thing I most learned from him was, to strive to be faithful to my experience.

That's beautiful.

Because, you know, I sometimes have students in my in my MFA seminars at the studio school. They say, well, what about objective criticism? There's no such thing.

Right. Yeah. Right. Though though some people have tried to make it into that, but I I don't think anyone's ever succeeded.

The other thing I learned from Greenberg and I think I probably would have come to this on my own anyway or maybe I did come to it on my own is to avoid theory.

Right.

Squeezing the your experience of the work of art through some Yeah. Formula. So why do

you think because, actually, I'd love that you brought that up because it's something I still think about is why some people seem so enamored with theory. And that's not to say theory isn't important in its own way, but it does feel sometimes like a straight jacket for some people.

Oh, it's easier. You don't have to really look.

Right.

You know, you can take a quick glance and use it as a jumping off place for some sometimes very interesting idea Right. Which may or may not be relevant to the object.

Right. Absolutely. So now tell us a little bit about you were in, Alberta. So when did you move there? What years were those?

Sixties? I was there from 67 to 78. 78, I moved to Toronto

Mhmm.

And started working independently. There were a handful of us independent curators in those days and we had all had in house experience. Now people get up in the morning, you know, they smite themselves on the brow and say, I am a curator. Everybody's a curator. Everybody's something hyphenated. And nobody teaches. They're all educators now.

Right. I love that. So what was Toronto like then and the art world in Toronto at that period?

A lot of very good painters. Yeah. Most of whom I knew.

Mhmm.

Many of them had were people who had been, encouraged by Jack Bush who was very, very generous to younger art. I'm lucky to know him at the end of his life. And he was a delight, very unpretentious and warm and such a wonderful painter.

Right.

And many of these younger artists he had was very, very encouraging to. And they've been completely written out of the canon by by the Canadian powers that be, you know.

Well, things go in cycles, so who knows?

Whole generation. One of them was David Balduke who was Oh, right. I think a wonderful artist and a wonderful guy. I miss him very much.

I still remember his sort of, like, his sort of forms that kind of, like, fanned out. Yeah. Those are really beautiful or are beautiful.

Died a few years ago. They still haven't done a major show, which they should have done. Sure.

You know? Absolutely.

So Jane Corkin, I think, a gallery, which is a very good gallery, is showing some of these people, which is awesome.

Absolutely. So then you moved to New York, you said, in 82, back to New York?

Back 85.

85. Okay. And so what brought you back to New York?

Well, really, my husband.

Okay.

I I got rid of the other one, which was a very good eye very good idea.

Out with the old, in with the new. Out with the old, in with the new.

Don decided that he didn't wanna work in Canada anymore. He wanted to work elsewhere.

So what was New York like when you returned?

Well, it was the eighties, so it was just digging out from the seventies.

Okay.

And, where I live on 38th Street between 5th and 6th, Bryant Park had been redone. It had by that time, they had gotten rid of all the drug dealers. They had replanted it. So some of the drug dealers were at the end of our block.

Right.

And but, you know, we lived on the block, so they didn't bother us. Right. They're gone now. I don't know where they've gone. Or maybe they just opened all those, cannabis stores.

Who knows? I I can't imagine how why there's so many. I mean, it's just incredible to me.

Well, they they cracked down on a bunch of the illegal ones in my neighborhood.

Oh, yeah.

That makes sense. Every 3 inches.

That makes sense.

And one of them turned into a gelato store, which I thought was great. Then we went and tried the gelato, and it wasn't any good. And I see that that has now closed.

So who knows? I love that. So New York must have been a whole different, animal in that area.

Still, you know, holding on to your handbag. And Right. There were still galleries in SoHo.

Okay. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. And the East Village was becoming a thing?

Just beginning.

And East Village was becoming a scene too?

Village was becoming a scene, and Chelsea was just just beginning.

Just beginning. And so what were you seeing? Because, you know, there was one one thing I've learned about New York Art World in the seventies eighties was there there was it was almost like a doctrine had had, like, descended on so much of the art world.

That's a good point. I mean, when I was first conscious of contemporary art and getting being fortunate enough to know to get get to know a lot of the artists whom I really admired, who were, you know, considerably older than I was and established, and, I mean, the real education, spending time with them in their studios, especially Anjani Caro. But the color field painters, the abstract painters, were coexisting in the marketplace with the pop artists. And the minimalists were getting started. And there seemed to be room for everybody.

Right.

And then it became very either or, which, of course, now it isn't either or. Now it's whatever. Right. Which is the other side of

the lawn. Right. There's so many marketplaces. Yeah. Yeah. So many.

Yeah. Well, you must have slogged around the art fair the way I did.

Yeah. We all you know? And it's like, you know

I thought your point about the mattresses and the jewelry were extremely well taken.

It was it was pretty funny. I have to say it was unexpected and yeah. So What?

It's jewelry.

Yeah. They were I mean, for those who may not know, at the armory show, there was a booth selling high end mattresses and another selling jewelry, which was not exactly what we were expecting, I think.

In very prime locations.

I you know, I I to to joke, I actually thought the mattresses were an art installation until because I saw them from a distance. I hadn't approached it. And then someone later had to explain to me that they were actually, no. They were just mattresses.

Had exactly the same experience. I was coming from a distance. I thought,

what some kind of minimalist sculpture? And then I got up close. So but in that period when you came back to New York, if I remember, you started writing books more. Is that

Well, I had already done the David Smith book. Right. That was the first book I

With Abbeville Press, I believe.

That with Abbeville Press.

Right.

It's still in print. Yeah. Wow. I don't care. Well, it's

a good book. But it is a good book.

Dorothy Daner said it was the best book on Smith.

Amazing.

And she was wonderful. Yeah. His his first wife.

You also wrote a Brock book for that.

Wrote a Brock book for them.

Right. George Brock.

That was a lot of fun.

Yeah. Absolutely. But you were starting to write books more in that period.

Well, I mean, you asked me how I got started writing, and that was entirely when I was working in Edmonton.

Mhmm.

I was doing exhibition catalogs, and, the local artists who some of whom were very good, some of whom I'm still in touch with. I mean, there are 2 sculptors whom I'm always in touch with, who I think very highly, Clay Ellis and Catherine Burgess, who are quite well known in Canada, but not here. Some of the local artists said, well, you you're from New York. You have connections. Why don't you write about us?

Arts International?

We all wrote for Art International.

I see.

That was the again, everybody. Michael Fried, you name it.

It was a beautiful publication.

It was a beautiful publication. He didn't pay.

Really?

Oh, he would pay eventually. You know. But it was it was prestigious to write for him.

Okay. Okay.

No. I was thrilled to write. And and you are

Sorry. Who's him? I'm sorry. Mhmm. Who's him for Arts International?

Jim Jim Fitzsimile.

That's it. Okay. Thank you.

Who I don't think is with us anymore. Right.

And so then, you That

was a rite of passage writing for Art

Right. And so then you started writing more and more.

Well, then I got this phone call from from Abbeville Press and said, would you like to do a book on David Smith? That took me about 30 seconds. Yeah. Because I'd already done an exhibition, called The Formative Years, which was Smith's work of the '30s '40s, which I later discovered was the first time anybody had put Smith's drawings with his sculpture, even though the drawings were very related to the sculpture. I mean, nobody told me not to do it, so I did it.

So then come the nineties. Now what what do you remember in terms of how the art world may have changed in the nineties?

Well, it became much more polarized.

Mhmm.

You know? There in spite of the fact that that, you know, the watch where, you know, the borders are permeable in terms of materials, in terms of kind of art you're making, and whether it was figurative, whether figurative or abstract or what. It just seemed to be much more of an us, them kind of thing. Maybe generational.

Right.

You know? I mean, critics do tend to get stuck with their generations.

Of course. Sure.

I am in touch with a lot of younger artists because of teaching.

Right. But I'm sure the bulk of the artists you're sort of corresponding with are probably

But the ones I'm closest to, I mean, some of them who are my generation, like Jill Nathanson, who I think is a terrific painter. Yeah. Fran O'Neill and other a lot of women. Which is nice. And I was lucky enough to know Tom Naskovsky pretty well, whom I admired enormously. I know Martin Puryear, not not well, but enough to have a nice conversation with him every now and again.

Right.

And so, I'm I'm a little peripheral.

Right.

And that's okay.

Yeah. And and so who are some of the artists that have really changed what you do? You know, for you, that really challenged you. And, you know, not necessarily, like, in person, their work challenged you or maybe some idea they put forward. You sort of had a eureka moment later. Who are some of those artists?

Well, the most recent one is, someone you you probably don't know. African American artist named Clintel Steed.

Oh, I know Clintel from the New York Studio School.

Right. Yes. And Clintel's work always challenges me.

I agree. I

think he's a spectacular painter. He's dealing with you know, I did that show for the, Equity Gallery, which was I had a wonderful time working on that. And, he's so intense, and he's so committed. And his work deals with so many complicated issues, but it's always about painting. Right. And I find he's someone that really, I have to look very hard and I have to think very hard.

It's a good one. That's a good one. Any other artists who have challenged, you know, your way of thinking?

Well

Jack Bush sounds like he was probably

Well, Jack Jack Bush, I just fell in love with those bands.

Right. Right. Right. Right.

They're series I like better than others, but he's so seductive. Yeah. But, you know, the person whom I may have learned most from was Tony Caro. I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with him in the studio. He and his wife, Sheila Girling, a terrific painter.

Tony Anthony Caro.

Yeah. Yep. His wife, Sheila Girling, a wonderful painter who who is virtually unknown in this country, well known in Great Britain. Going to Tony's studio was work. He was not the least bit interested in being told, I think that's a wonderful sculpture.

Another sculptor. There we are. A sculpture. Yeah. And you liked being challenged that way. Yeah. That's amazing.

And he, you know, he would change materials. He would he would try things. He said, I don't like doing the same thing. It's too boring.

Right.

So if you look at his work, he's constantly reinventing himself.

Any, other painters or that you can think of?

Well, I would say to spend time with Ken Noland in his studio was phenomenal. And I also had an opportunity to go around the Matisse show in 92 with him. There were the olden days, there'd be scholars days when the museum was closed and

there were a

small group of us, Bill Agee was one, who were there every time. And sometimes we'd get from 1907 to 190 9 in 4 hours. That was another great learning experience. But I remember going around with Ken, and he he suddenly said, that painting is keyed off of green. That's very unusual. I mean, he was looking at paintings in a way that I had never looked at paintings.

Right. And how about in terms of video art or installation artists? Anything you know, any relationships, there that you

Absolutely. Marie Luthier, I think, is brilliant.

Right.

She's also a very good friend.

Mhmm.

Partly I mean, I I knew her work, but I got to know her because she was married to another fine perceptual painter called Robert Berlind, and Bob and I were an item when I was 17.

Got it.

God. He was gorgeous.

So let's let's pass.

I I find her work ex absolutely mesmerizing. And I did the the, catalog of a show she did called plains of sweet regret, which is her, 6 channel, screen about the depopulation of the Prairies, which an amazing piece. MoMA has an amazing piece of hers that was done about the floods in North Dakota Mhmm. Which they haven't shown in years. Again, multichannel.

So now let's fast forward to 21st century because I'm sort of keeping it separate Mhmm. Because I feel like the art world changed a lot this century. And maybe it got so much larger, but also Enormous. Yeah. Compared to what it used to be. Do you wanna sort of share your thoughts on that? Like, what happened then to the artist?

Sheer bewilderment on my part. I mean, I can I can still visualize a page in the New York Times? Now the New York Times pages used be bigger, as you recall. And we used to have, in elementary school, we were taught how to fold a newspaper so you could read it in public.

Oh, wow.

Right. But probably the only really useful thing I learned in elementary school. But, if all the exhibitions were listed in, you know, like, that much space at the bottom.

Right.

And when Tiburon Denage had its 50th anniversary in 2000, I had a research assistant who brought me copies of reviews of all the shows at Tibor Du Nagy. And Art News, they were sometimes only this big, they reviewed every single exhibition.

Wow.

In 1950. So you you couldn't do that. And the the other thing that, brought that home to me was the, late brilliant art historian, Lane Faison, who taught at Williams. And he and Whitney Stoddard were responsible for what was known as the Williams mafia, which were the, all the American Art Museum directors and chief curators who had gone to Williams. I think they're all pretty much gone now.

That's quite an accomplishment.

They were Lane was amazing. And when Clement Greenberg stopped writing for The Nation, he, which was in whatever it was, 60 something, he chose Lane Faison as his successor. Lane had been reviewing art books for the magazine. And Lane told me the story, he said, Clem told him and called him and suggested this, and his response was, well, I'm I'm an art historian. I don't know anything about the art of my own time.

Right.

You can't

do that anymore.

Can't do that anymore. Including going to Mercedes Matter's house, Apartment, McDougallalle and where Elaine saw his first, Pollock in the flesh Wow. Which is now in the Yale Art Gallery.

Amazing. So how is it like writing about art and curating art this century? Like, how has it changed? I'm very selective. Right.

I mean, I I the when people say, well, I'm gonna do Chelsea. I think, are you out of your mind? Quite apart from the size of the enterprise, there's just a very high risk of seeing a lot of really terrible stuff.

That's true. That's very true.

So I, you know, I go see certain things and I know I miss a lot. Sometimes, you know, somebody I have my students in the seminar, before we start talking about whatever we've read, I have them say what they've seen that week. And they often go see very different things than I do, so that's good.

Yeah. That is good. Of course.

Sometimes if I'm intrigued, I'll go, look at that. But the main difference that I see besides just the sheer magnitude, is that it's become all about money and not about aesthetics.

Right. You know,

it's monetary value, not aesthetic value.

And so what are some of the things that may have been may have improved in your opinion?

I'm not sure.

Well, certainly, women are getting more attention.

Women are getting more attention. People of color are getting more attention. I mean, sometimes deservedly. Yep. Sometimes not so deservedly. I mean, I am ecstatic that a wonderful abstract painter like James Little was on both floors of the biennial Right. Making some money and finally having the attention that he deserves. Carl Hazelwood is getting a lot of attention.

Right.

Another, Triangle alum. Those are both Triangle alumni. We're very proud of Hew Locke

Oh, yeah.

Who has become the

Of course. Incredible.

Incredible.

Yeah.

He's one of ours. So these these are are they having more attention paid because they are people of color? Maybe. But they're wonderful artists, and they should have that attention paid.

Right. Exactly. Very well deserved attention. Right? And And

McLelland is another alum.

So what are what are what are for people who may not know your work, I mean, part of this podcast is sort of for people who may not know your work to be introduced to you, what are some of the books or things you've written or or shows you've curated you'd love them to take a look at that you think is representative of some of the things you've worked on?

Well, one of the things I'm very proud of is the show I did with my beloved late colleagues, Bill Agee and Irving Sandler. We we worked on a lot of things together. We did a show that we called American Vanguards that was are Sheila Gorky, Stuart Davis, John Graham, William de Kooning, and their circle. Mhmm. 1927, 1942.

You

know, every and the way we got interested in this is every time we were working I was working on someone like Stuart Davis or David Smith, or any of the artists of that generation, take a step back, and I'd fall over John Graham.

Right.

So at that point, we thought we should look at this.

Right. Right.

And then I did a John Graham show with Alicia Longwell for the parish where we looked even more deeply. But American Vanguard is something I'm very proud of. I like my Morandi book. Yes. It was the first one in English.

Yep. Amazing.

And it has very good color reproduction.

That's right.

And

you're the person who introduced Morandi's work to me. I'd never I didn't know his work before. Absolutely.

There's a show coming up

Oh, wow.

In New York. The thing that I I think I'm most grateful for, happy about, I because I write I do reviewing as well as organ I play Both Sides of the Street. I don't write reviews of the shows I organize. I have to say that

these

days because conflict of interest is

It's a funny thing, isn't it?

Out there. Shall we say?

Yes. Absolutely.

The other thing one really honorable thing I know about Clem Greenberg is he always said, you don't write about anybody you sleep with.

Right.

I think he was probably true to that.

Right.

Anyway, the, because I write about all kinds of shows, it means I have to keep my art history chops in order. Mhmm. I also get to exploit all my curator friends.

Mhmm.

And I learn a lot, you know, when I when I walk around with them and talk about the shows.

And when you're teaching, you teach a lot about Cezanne. Well, it comes and goes. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Yeah. And who are some of the others? Who are the some of the real sort of touchstones for your teaching?

Well, because I'm at the studio school, there's a lot of overlap of what I'm interested in and them. Obviously, Piero del Francesca. Yes. Obviously Cezanne. I have them look at a lot of Bernini, which is slightly heretical.

Right.

Has to be tangentially related to their work in some way. And as you everybody needs an artist statement these days. And we tell them that if you can write an artist statement that people will read and not wanna throw across the room, if it stays in the pile, your chances of whatever you're applying for are greater.

Yeah. There you are. That's so true. So now are there things you wanna talk about that we haven't touched upon?

Because The thing we haven't touched about is Maine Coon cats, but I'm

not sure if that's true. Love of Maine Coon cats.

Well, I've lived with Maine Coon cats.

Yes.

One of whom is named for Lois Dodd, and I had the pleasure of introducing Lois Dodd, the painter, to, with Lois Dodd, the, to Lois Dodd, the cat.

Oh, that's a nice that's a wonderful honor.

During, the lockdown when everything was virtual

Mhmm.

The one good thing about that was that since I was teaching virtually, we could have these virtual studio visits

Right.

To places we couldn't get to. Lois spent the lockdown in Maine and did this wonderful session with my students when Lois' cat jumped into my lap so I could introduce them. And Lois' dog is a cat person. It's very nice.

That's beautiful. So are there any shows or books that you still haven't been able to write that you're eager to put out into the world? And maybe people who are listening will will

There are 2 there

are

2 things that if I live long enough, I hope I can still do. 1, I have an application in for funding. I won't know anything about that until November. I'd like to write about the cross fertilization again, that moment of in between and overlap around Bennington in the sixties when Antoni Caro and Jules Olitsky were teaching at Bennington, Ken Noland lived in South Shaftesbury. Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler visited frequently, so did David Smith.

Was Paul Feeley there too?

Paul Feeley was teaching at Bennington, but he wasn't part of this group.

Got it. Okay.

So you have, Nolan's stripe paintings profoundly interest influencing Caro's low lying Bennington sculptures. Oh, wow. You have, Smith proposing to Motherwell that they collaborate, and Motherwell saying no because he said he couldn't imagine what an elegy looked like from the side.

Wow.

So Smith paints his own elegy on steel and makes his own sculpture. Amazing. Helen does drawings that relate to seeing Smith in the field. So all of this back and forth.

Oh, that does sound like a very rich period. Yeah. That's amazing. And how about a book? Any books?

Well, that is a book.

Okay. That's a book. This sounds like an exhibition. That's why.

It would be a wonderful exhibition, but I think a little expensive.

Probably. And how about an exhibition? Is there something?

Well, another exhibition that probably won't was gonna happen, was Helen Frankenthaler's Source Paintings. All her life, she was looking to old master and modern master painting and painting her own variations on them. I mean, that starts in the fifties. And we were when Helen was still alive, but not in great shape, we were talking about doing this show. The American Federation of Arts wanted to do it.

Wow.

Yeah. She didn't believe in that kind of segregation.

Oh, interesting.

Well, I tend to agree with it, you know. It's like, why should it be a separate category?

Right.

Helen's then husband, Helen at at that point was not making the best decisions. He absolutely vetoed it. Even though someone who was very close to Helen, who had been her assistant for years and I, we sat down and said, you know, there are a lot of women who are getting much more attention than Helen, who are not as good and maybe it's time to move into that. She thought it was okay. And this was someone who had worked for Helen for 30 years.

Makes sense.

But Steve didn't think it was a good idea. I hope that might happen again.

I think those both sound like great ideas. So I wanted to, unless there's something you'd like to talk about that we haven't touched upon.

We've got another 30 years of conversation.

I mean, there's so much more we can add, but, you know, I just think you know, I just wanna say that, you know, maybe people may not know, but, you know, you've been so formative for me as as as a writer, as a thinker in different ways because I I wanna say that you've never been prescriptive. And you've always not. No. Well, you know, I think some some professors can be where they try to create mini me's, you know, or the versions of themselves, but I've never felt that with you. I've always felt like you've always encouraged me and others I I've also seen to find their own path.

I'm very touched to hear this. But, you know, it never occurred to me that there was any other way to do it.

Well, there unfortunately is for some people, and I just think it's it just shows your kindness and and your ability to sort of push people to sort of help realize what they want to do without ever feeling like they had to be just like you, which I think probably, you know, listening to your stories just reminds me that, you know, you understand the the value of being able to be yourself.

Well, I've been lucky in that I spent a lot of time with people who were aggressively themselves in the studio, and I learned a lot from that.

Yeah.

It was exciting to see that.

Well, thank you, Karen. And, you. And thank you for this conversation. It's always a delight.

The pleasure was all mine.

Thank you so much for listening. This podcast is edited by producer, Isabella Segalovich, and a quick word from our sponsor, Hyperallergic Members. Hyperallergic is an independent art publication based here in New York, and we pride ourselves in telling it like it is. We're not supported by billionaires. We are not some pet project of a bunch of people who think that they can game the art world.