Taking a short hiatus. Will be back soon. … [Read more...]

My East Village Not that I want to give any secrets away, but I live in the East Village. To be even more specific, our tenement digs -- in light-hearted moments we call it our jewelbox pied-a-terre -- is in the heart of a small and growing smaller Ukrainian enclave. This Little Ukraine is also, judging by my building, peppered with Poles, and at least one half-Pole, namely John Urzendowski Perreault. Nevertheless, this storied Ukrainian neighborhood can also be seen as one big N.Y.U. dormitory … [Read more...]

Last week, a well-attended memorial for Leon Golub (1922-2004) was held at Cooper-Union's Great Hall (where Lincoln spoke). Personal talks and reminiscences were offered by Nancy Spero, the artist's wife and a fine artist herself, as well as by Kiki Smith, the poet Clayton Eshleman, and many others. I was reminded of an appreciation I wrote for N.Y. Arts magazine in June of 2001 on the occasion of the artist's retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. I couldn't find it online, so I thought I would … [Read more...]

Max Ernst: The Blessed Virgin Chastizes the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses, 1926 Why Surrealisms Now? Three exhibitions prompt this question: "Dal�" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (to May 15), "Max Ernst: A Retrospective" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue, to July 10) and "Surrealism USA" at the National Academy of Design (1083 Fifth Avenue, to May 8). I would not accuse the Metropolitan and certainly not the National Academy of Art (see below) of pandering to the … [Read more...]

Pat Steir, Blue River In Praise of Painting If someone were to ask me who the best underrated painter is now, I'd have to say Pat Steir, who started exhibiting in 1964. Brice Marden is not underrated; he's having a show sometimes soon at MoMA. There, when it happens, we will have to deal with the caesura between his early monochromes (sometimes leaving thin, spattered strips at their bottom edge, giving the effect of a window shade almost-but-not-quite pulled to the sill) and his "painterly" … [Read more...]

  Larry Clark, "Untitled" (from Teenage Lust). Courtesy Luring Augustine Gallery.                 What Photography Was The battle for photography is pretty much over. If you can sell it as art, it's art. Of course, bigger is better because bigger has got to be more expensive. On the upside categories are unstable -- which infuriates the insecure. And since categories rule, who or what will be in charge when they are … [Read more...]

Prague in the Fog          The Prague Balance Sheet Travel is one of those mysteries I will never understand. Certain cities you know you will like ahead of time (Reykjavik, Rio); some will take you by surprise (Stockholm). Others, like Prague, are cities you know you should like but...      The Czech language is made up entirely of consonants, yet is enough like the Polish of my grandmother to give me a craving for stuffed … [Read more...]

The Gates of Hell There are three things Christo and Jeanne-Claude do not do together:* They never fly in the same aircraft. * Jeanne-Claude does not make drawing, she was not trained for that. Christo puts their ideas on paper, he never had an assistant in his studio. * Christo never had the pleasure of talking to their tax accountant.                           from … [Read more...]

John Perreault, Toothpaste Mural II, 2005                "How to Innovate" Lecture given at Cochise College, Sierra Vista, Arizona. February 2 and 3. For better or worse, the art world puts a premium on innovation. Well, more or less. The history of modernism (and of its subset, postmodernism) is a history of innovations. Doing something new in the right way at the right time is rewarded, if not immediately, then sooner or … [Read more...]

On the road...New essay February 7. … [Read more...]