{"id":150,"date":"2008-10-06T13:30:45","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T13:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/?p=150"},"modified":"2011-09-04T18:07:02","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T22:07:02","slug":"street_works_in_colorado_libes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2008\/10\/street_works_in_colorado_libes.html","title":{"rendered":"Street Works in Colorado; Libeskind and Kirkland in Outer Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"267\" alt=\"critical_mass.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/critical_mass.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/h1>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 1.25em\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">John Perreault: <em>Critical Mass Redux<\/em> (1971-2008)<\/font>&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><strong>How History Is Rewritten<\/strong><\/font><\/h1>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Yours truly has finally managed to get a few things off his chest. Or, more correctly, off his back. As keeper of the Street Works and Performance flame, I have carted around a burden these many years since the late &#8217;60s, waiting for someone, anyone, to delve into these phenomena. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 1.25em\">Two-hundred-and-forty-two sheets of paper and various souvenirs are now on display in an experimental, <span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">au courant, <\/span>witty art space called&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.belmarlab.org\/plainsight.php\">The Laboratory for Art and Ideas at Belmar<\/a>. (For more images, go to The Antics, then Photo Album, and also click on The BLAB.) Humor plays a large part in its branding. Surprisingly, it&#8217;s in a newly created, upscale satellite of Denver in Lakewood<\/font>. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Belmar? Lakewood? These names are not strange to me: I spent an important part of my childhood in the New Jersey seaside resort town of Belmar. Inland,<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>the mostly Jewish resort of Lakewood was a car ride away, where in all seasons one could see wizened old women with and without their mates, sunning and airing themselves on porches in the pine-scented air.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">This Belmar and this Lakewood are very different. At an altitude of 5,000 feet, there is not a beach or a pine tree in sight. Where am I? Somewhere flat. Flying into Denver is like preparing to land on a big quilt. The squares are fields, some swiped with enormous circles created by the wands of irrigation&#8217;s one-armed clocks; here and there, tractor-generated pillars of dust move slowly, slowly. And then you see the startling, stark-white &#8220;tents&#8221; of Curt Fentress&#8217; 1995 Denver International Airport, meant to rhyme with the distant Rockies, but imparting the odd feeling that you are about to touch down somewhere in the Arabian peninsula. Perhaps Dubai?<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"172\" alt=\"airport.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/airport.jpg\" width=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">Curt Fentress: <em>Denver Airport Terminal<\/em>, 1995<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Later, Belmar itself turns out to be a nascent but flattened La Jolla, minus the beach. Or is everything around us one big beach?<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Just as imagined, my 242 photocopies are stapled to the pristine walls of the Lab as part of an exhibition called<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>&#8220;In Plain Sight: Street Works and Performances 1968-1971.&#8221; They document now-ancient yet still relevant artworks initiated by an exceedingly and self-consciously avant-garde cadre consisting of Vito Acconci, Scott Burton (1939-1989), Eduardo Costa, Bernadette Mayer, Marjorie Strider, Hannah Weiner (1928-1997) and yours truly.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"272\" alt=\"readers.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/readers.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 1.25em\"><em>In Plain Sight&nbsp; (<\/em>installation view)&nbsp;<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 1em\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">We, the instigators\/producers of Street Works and early Performances, were writers of one sort or another who suddenly proclaimed ourselves artists through our daring deeds, propaganda, and organizational skills. (The exception was Strider, who had already been inducted as an artist into the annals of Pop.)<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Acconci, Mayer, Weiner, and I were already published poets. Acconci and Mayer edited the mimeographed magazine <span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">0-9<\/span>, now a treasury of poetry&#8217;s next step after the New York School. The New York School of poetry (John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O&#8217;Hara) were named after the New York School of art (Pollock, de Kooning) because of social, professional, and aesthetic correspondences<i>.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Burton was a would-be playwright. Costa had studied with fabulist Jorge Luis Borges and was one of the authors of the <i>Happening That Never Happened<\/i> hoaxwork (in Buenos Aires). One of Costa&#8217;s<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>&#8220;Fashion Fictions&#8221; had even made the cover of Italian Vogue. Acconci, Burton, and I were also art critics.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">&#8220;In Plain Sight&#8221; is in plain sight until Jan. 4, 2009. Art historian Judy Collischan and I are the curators. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Along with the photocopies of leaflets, flyers, press releases and press coverage<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>(a small part provided by myself in the Village Voice, where I was the art critic at the time and such tactics were not forbidden) there are a number of choice souvenirs. Viewers are exposed to Strider&#8217;s <i>Frame Dress<\/i> from the Fashion Show Poetry Event of 1968 held at the Center for Inter-American Relations in N.Y.C.; it was modeled by the naked dancer\/choreographer Deborah Hay. Also on view is one unit of my <i>Hair Piece<\/i>, here displayed as a kind of apron to shield the privates of a female dummy, whereas in real life (i.e., the Fashion Show), the two-unit sculpture was a veil, skirt, arm- and leg-cuffs modeled by poet Anne Waldman. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">And then there&#8217;s Costa&#8217;s gold ear-piece shown in a glamour photo by Richard Avedon and, from Street Works IV (sponsored by the Architectural League of New York in 1969), a &#8220;replica&#8221; of Weiner&#8217;s <i>Weiner&#8217;s Wieners,<\/i><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\"> <\/span>which was a<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/span>rented hot-dog stand that offered free hot dogs at the curb in front of the League&#8217;s headquarters. At the Lab, the stand-in for the original stand is displayed inside the second-floor gallery space and, at the opening, offered free dogs too.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"200\" alt=\"WWsized.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/WWsized.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hannah Weiner: <em>Weiner&#8217;s Wieners&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><em><\/em><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Pictures of Acconci biting himself are up on the wall. And among the other mementos of our vital art movement, there&#8217;s a large black letter A and 25 other objects, one for each of the remaining letters of the alphabet, all tied to a folding chair by black twine. This represents a performance I did at the Whitney Museum in 1971 called <i>Critical Mass<\/i>.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"208\" alt=\"MASSADJUSTED.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/MASSADJUSTED.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>John Perreault: <em>Critical Mass <\/em>(props)&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">For the opening of &#8220;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">In Plain Sight<\/span>,&#8221; I once again tied the 26 things to myself and crawled out of the gallery space, but this time my hair was short and I wore a Brooks Brothers suit and a tie. Also, to celebrate the opening reception, I<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>circumambulated a 10-ton, black-marble sphere imported from Russia that was sited behind the Lab in a little plaza, thus balancing the old with the new. Although the symbolism escapes me, when it is covered with and floating on a thin skin of flowing water, the sphere can be rotated with the touch of one finger. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"134\" alt=\"sized.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/sized.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">John Perreault: <em>Black Sphere Circumambulation<\/em>, 2008<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">Back inside, through examining the ephemera displayed, the patient viewer will discern that there were over 200 hundred artists, poets and critics involved in the various Street Works. Now being celebrated at long last, the seven-person cadre itself also produced and starred in over 20 performance evenings within a short period, in venues as various as the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn. (the debut site of Virgil Thompson&#8217;s <i>Four Saints in Three Acts<\/i>), Hunter College, the Whitney and the 14<sup>th<\/sup> Street YMHA.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/hair%20apron.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"346\" alt=\"hair apron.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/assets_c\/2008\/10\/hair%20apron-thumb-300x346.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">Marjorie Strider: <em>Frame Dress<\/em>; Perreault: <em>Hair&nbsp;Apron, <\/em><\/font><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">Fashion Show Poetry Event, 1968.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">&nbsp; <\/font><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">The first Street Work was initiated by Hannah Weiner in 1968; at that time she was a successful designer of women&#8217;s underwear. The event occurred outside her loft on West 26<sup>th<\/sup> Street. She hired two off-duty but fully uniformed Coast Guards to signal each other from one end of the block to the other, using regulation flags and flag codes. Wearing a gas mask, this writer wheeled his bicycle slowly down the street. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Above the clean-cut Coast Guard guys madly waving &#8212; and above an assembly of 50 or so invitees &#8212; poet and Paris Review editor Michael Benedikt projected a pornographic movie onto Weiner&#8217;s loft window. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">This led to bigger Street Work jamborees, as mysterious as they were ephemeral, but aimed more at the general public than an exclusively art-world audience. The first of these was on the Ides of March, 1968. At a time before cell phones, I made calls from one phone booth to another in a proscribed midtown area, hanging up before anyone could answer. Acconci walked back and forth in front of St. Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral. During another Street Works installment, Burton cruised<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>the street in full drag and was not recognized by any of us. Costa claimed to have replaced missing street signs. Strider placed picture frames here and there. Critic Lucy Lippard drew chalk circles around each poet she came across. Avant-garde critic, artist and elder Lil Picard (who, like dance critic Edwin Denby, had survived the Weimar Republic) handed out art-world junk mail she had received the week before. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">I have dedicated my &#8220;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">In Plain Sight&#8221;<\/span> catalog essay to Picard and Denby. The catalog, in the spirit of Street Works, is a three-ring binder containing photocopies of all the photocopies stapled to the walls and slated for disposal. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">I should note that Street Works were originally a response in part to Earth Works, which some of us considered elitist. It would take and still does take a considerable amount of cash to visit Robert Smithson&#8217;s <i>Spiral Jetty<\/i>. Smithson was a friend and verbal sparring partner, so I couldn&#8217;t help answering his own sarcasm with some of my own. I certainly didn&#8217;t have the money to visit Utah.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">It was also a time of social upheaval. The Vietnam war was not exactly popular. Assassinations seemed to be the order of the day: JFK in &#8217;63, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., in &#8217;68. In 1969, the Stonewall riots upset quite a few people, and in 1970 the Kent State massacre earned big headlines. Civil-rights sit-downs and peace marches proliferated.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/black%20sphere.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 20px; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" height=\"262\" alt=\"black sphere.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/assets_c\/2008\/10\/black%20sphere-thumb-350x262.jpg\" width=\"350\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Black marble sphere,&nbsp;Belmar,&nbsp;Colorado<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Inequality, visible as always, now seemed intolerable. Artists too protested against perceived ill-treatment at MoMA during the notorious Machine Art show. There was an art moratorium. Even art critics were in revolt, and I found myself elected president of the American Section of the International Association of Art Critics, a group that had become moribund under critic Rosalind Krauss.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><strong><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"216\" alt=\"dog.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/dog.jpg\" width=\"250\" \/><\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><strong><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">The Absurdity of It All<\/font><\/strong><\/h1>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Street Works attempted to make the cityscape visible again, with the added virtue of shaking up rigid career hierarchies and in so doing challenging<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>institutional passivity and conservatism. Moving indoors, Performances were neo-Happenings constructed on a more conceptual basis. Both Street Works and Performances were firmly grounded in Futurism, Dada, Happenings and Fluxus &#8212; with a dose of Situationism for good measure. Poets were, of course, well-read. And we knew about art. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">As a viewer of as well as participant in Street Works, I can testify that once one was keyed up to search for artworks within a certain number of city blocks within a certain time, everything was vivified; everything was sculpture. Is the mother holding the hand of her child a dancer dancing? Are the scraps of paper in the gutter Schwitters-like collage? Is that billboard real or only an artwork? Is the panhandler who approaches you an artist? Are the products in the shop window sculptures-for-a-day? Why is that telephone in the booth ringing and ringing?<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">But other lessons can be learned.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">At a time when commerce rules the arts, we need to be reminded that one can make art without a MFA and with little or no cash-outlay &#8212; <i>hors de commerce<\/i>, as it were. One creates one&#8217;s own venue; the arts do not have to be controlled by money interests. In Artopia, the definition of an artist is not an art-school graduate who makes his (yes, still usually <i>his<\/i>) living by selling art products. An artist is someone who makes us see. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">Visual artists should look at poets. Was William Carlos Williams (Robert Smithson&#8217;s baby doctor!) any less of a poet because he made his living by practicing medicine? Or T. S. Eliot less a poet because he was a banker? Was Hart Crane less a poet because he once worked in a bookstore? Am I any less an artist because I am a poet who has made his living as an art critic? Are there not clerical and factory-worker artists? Was Marcel Duchamp less an artist because he was in some ways Brancusi&#8217;s New York art dealer?<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"394\" alt=\"costaear.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/costaear.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\" color=\"#000000\">Eduardo Costa: <em>Ear (Fashion Fiction), <\/em>1968<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\" color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\" color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><strong>The Crawl<o:p><\/o:p><\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Vito Acconci became the leading proponent of Body Art and now focuses on architectural projects. Bernadette Mayer became the director of the St. Mark&#8217;s Poetry Project, Eduardo Costa eventually made sculptures out of solid paint. The late Hannah Weiner began to see words on people&#8217;s foreheads and became a highly regarded avant-garde poet. The late Scott Burton evolved into an artist of note, specializing in furniture as sculpture. Along with writing poetry and fiction (<i>Hotel Death<\/i>, 1998), making toothpaste paintings, mending stones and working as an critic, curator and arts administrator, John Perreault just kept on being John Perreault. He kept on traveling.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><strong><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Artopia on the Road<\/font><\/strong><\/h1>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"390\" alt=\"damsized.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/damsized.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">Daniel Libeskind: <em>Denver Art Museum, <\/em>2006<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">Travel is a great way to unravel. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">When in Denver, you can&#8217;t miss Daniel Libeskind&#8217;s <i>Denver Art Museum<\/i> (2006). It nearly blots out the once controversial museum building next door by Gio Ponti (1971) and, fortunately, the Michael Graves library. Libeskind&#8217;s escapade is like his Jewish Museum in Berlin: all acute angles and lethal-looking triangles. I like the DAM &#8212; at least the outside, because it screams &#8220;this is the place!&#8221; It doesn&#8217;t look like a Greek temple or a bank or a fort (which Ponti&#8217;s building does). If it is not a Greek temple or bank or fort, it must be &#8230; an art museum. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">The problem with the DAM is inside. How do you show paintings on walls that tilt? You have to build false walls and add all sorts of props and shims. My idea for an exhibition is to show a year&#8217;s worth of shims <span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">in situ<\/span> without the art they held up. Or better yet, mount the shims on normal walls and then affix blank canvases to reveal the angles and tilts they would have had to battle. Note too that whereas the angles and <span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">cul de sacs<\/span> (symbolic!) <span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">inside<\/span> of the Berlin museum are photogenic, it is the <i>outside<\/i> of the DAM that most pleases the camera.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Like his Jewish Museum, Libeskind&#8217;s DAM building would be a great work of architecture if empty. Or could it be that we just have to get used to it? I remember the scandal of Frank Lloyd Wright&#8217;s <span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic\">Guggenheim,<\/span> now finally restored to its pale-beige glory. At first many opined that it looked like a gigantic washing machine, and even I thought that<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>having to stick paintings onto dowels to compensate for the curved walls in each bay was a bit much.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">How swiftly we have rewritten architecture. Michael Graves rapidly replaced Robert Venturi, and now neither seems to have much influence. Buildings as icons are the rage. All that matters is how they look. They can be impractical and loony, but as long as they are photogenic they will carry the day. At least for a while. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><strong>Hanging From the Cosmic Ceiling&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><strong>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"320\" alt=\"Explosions.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/Explosions.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\">Vance Kirkland: <em>Explosions on a Sun 70 Billion Light Years from Earth<\/em>, 1979<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 0.8em\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So Adam Lerner, the energetic director of the Lab &#8212; the DAM was in some way the Lab&#8217;s launching pad &#8212; said there&#8217;s one more place I have to see: the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vancekirkland.org\/\">Kirkland Museum <\/a>of Fine and Decorative Arts, named after painter and educator Vance Kirkland (1904-81), whose studio it had been. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">This charming museum is dedicated to its former owner&#8217;s paintings. But that&#8217;s not all. Seeded by Kirkland&#8217;s collecting mania, the cottage-like museum also houses a huge collection of American &#8220;decorative art&#8221; (here meaning design objects), most of it from the &#8217;50s: by Russel Wright, Eva Zeisel, the Eameses. Everything is crammed together. Looked like home to me, but I zoomed in on the paintings.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"159\" alt=\"diningroomsized.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/diningroomsized.jpg\" width=\"235\" \/><\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p><p><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"163\" alt=\"interiorsized.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/interiorsized.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p>\n<p><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><\/span>In one of the rooms we see Kirkland&#8217;s painting apparatus: leather straps hanging from the ceiling&nbsp;in great, drooping arcs over a broad worktable displaying an unfinished painting. He was a small man (5&#8217;1&#8243;) and increasingly frail as he aged, so in the last and most glorious period of his art, he placed his canvases horizontally and suspended himself over them via these straps. Hovering arm&#8217;s length over his surfaces, using dowels, he laboriously applied the final dabs\/dots of paint on top of his oil and water grounds. Yes, oil and water.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\">&nbsp;<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/strapssmaller.jpg\"><\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/strapssmaller-thumb-600x450.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Thumbnail image for strapssmaller.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/assets_c\/2008\/10\/strapssmaller-thumb-600x450-thumb-500x375.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Kirkland was a successful watercolorist in the &#8217;30s and showed at Knoedler in New York. After the Surrealism that followed his American Scene phase, he began to use oil paint as a resist for water-soluble colors. Then, in about 1951, living, working and teaching in Denver, he became an Abstract Expressionist without portfolio, painting the cosmos as it might be seen by someone with supra-spectrum vision or synesthesia. He did, in fact, see sounds as colors and vice versa. His great swirls of color, eventually dappled with brilliant dots, don&#8217;t have preferred tops or bottoms, and quirky Kirkland resisted signing his abstractions because he didn&#8217;t want them limited to a single orientation (sometimes, though, he signed them on opposing edges). I thought of the cosmos, but also of those big rectangular fields you see from the air when you fly into Denver; neither has a top or bottom.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"333\" alt=\"1529321391_d79d8028dc.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/1529321391_d79d8028dc.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 1em\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Kirkland,<em>The Energy of Explosions 24 Billion Years BC<\/em>, 1978 (partial view)&nbsp;<br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font style=\"FONT-SIZE: 1em\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">One cannot exactly call Kirkland an Outsider Artist, for he was obviously in touch with all the major trends in the art world; he was on the board of the Denver Art Museum and founded his own art school. As he matured, he spent more and more hours painting, often more than 12 hours a day every day for weeks on end, floating over his horizontal canvases, but selling less and less. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Kirkland was obviously talented, obviously charismatic, obviously capable of creating some astounding abstract paintings, obviously driven. But where shall we place him? In some cases, his dotting technique resulted in Op Art results, but he is primarily an Action Painting isolate, marching to his own drummer. A visionary of sorts, he synthesized opposites: oil and water, Op Art and AE. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">Because Kirkland&#8217;s paintings are displayed where he made them, sandwiched among piles and arrays of dishes, pots and furniture, visitors can enjoy them without the white-wall bracketing of most museums and galleries, and they sing. May they always be seen this way, and not removed to the slow death of standard display.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">When art history is again rewritten, as it must be, there will be a special niche for Kirkland. But that art history will have to be of a new form created by those who can think outside the standard headings that slide lectures demand. How can we change the patterning of art history, the rote route, so it can allow the truth of an unofficial Abstract Expressionist making some of his best paintings &#8212; and some of the best paintings of late-AE<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp;<\/span>&#8212; as late as 1980, in of all places Denver, Colorado, in a cottage, crammed with tchotchkas?<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"274\" alt=\"Vance2.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/Vance2.jpg\" width=\"232\" \/><\/span>&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">FOR AN AUTOMATIC ARTOPIA ALERT WHEN NEW ENTRIES ARE POSTED&nbsp; <\/font><font color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">E-MAIL:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>perreault@aol.com<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<h1><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;John Perreault: Critical Mass Redux (1971-2008)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; How History Is Rewritten &nbsp; Yours truly has finally managed to get a few things off his chest. Or, more correctly, off his back. As keeper of the Street Works and Performance flame, I have carted around a burden these many years since the late &#8217;60s, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,13,16,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"tag-hannah-weiner","8":"tag-john-perreault","9":"tag-performances","10":"tag-street-works","11":"tag-vance-kirkland","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}