(An Appropriate Distance)
FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP
by Piri Halasz

 

NO. 79: 15 JANUARY 2008....LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.............In my last issue, I begged for letters to the editor, and am happy to print five fine ones that I’ve received, written in a range of styles and representing diverse points of view. Before I print them, however, I announce 8 shows that I want to see, and briefly comment on 7 shows I’ve seen. After the letters, and my response to them, comes a brief passage on politics, but no color supplement, nor other discussions, because I am more than ever up to my eyebrows in fact-checking my manuscript and getting permissions to quote passages by other authors. With luck, I won’t be giving you another issue until after the manuscript goes to my publisher, but that may not be until April or even June.

To begin: shows worth seeing 

“Larry Poons: Throw, Pour, Drip, Spill & Splash: Paintings 1971-1980,” at Jacobson Howard, January 17 through February 25; AND 

“‘Friedel Dzubas: Paintings of the 1970s & 1980s,” at Leslie Feely Fine Art, January 17 through February 23. 

Neither artist needs any introduction to my readers, but paintings by either from this period haven’t been exhibited much since they were originally shown, even though both were in top form during these years. Both galleries are at 33 East 68th Street, and will hold openings on January 17 from 6 to 8 pm. Hope to see you there! 

In Sideshow at 319 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, “Peace” opens on January 19 and runs through March 2. The opening of this annual extravaganza, from 6 to 9 on the 19th, needs publicity like I need a second head: with a minimum of 250 artists in the show, all of them presumably with their own sets of friends, plan on arriving early on the 19th if you want to get a foot inside the door. 

At Tria in Chelsea, “Francine Tint: New Paintings” will have two openings, not one: February 13 and February 14, both 5 to 7 pm. The gallery is at 547 West 27th Street, 5th Floor, and the show runs until March 22. 

Certainly on the short list: “Courbet”at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 27 to May 18, fresh from the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, and “Jackson Pollock, Intaglios and Screenprints,” at Washburn, 20 West 57th (through March 21). 

Very likely worth seeing: “Diebenkorn in New Mexico” at N. Y. U.’s Grey Art Gallery on Washington Square, January 25 through April 5 – paintings done between 1950 and 1952, when the young artist was still studying on the GI Bill at the University of New Mexico; also “carolanna parlato: nature games” at elizabeth harris, 529 West 20th Street, through February 2 – I’m curious to see more work by this younger artist, as it was recommended to me by two other artists whose opinions I respect.

A memorial for André Emmerich will be held on February 26, 2008, at 11:30 am in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. 

Now, shows I did see:

At the Museum of Modern Art, I saw “Georges Seurat: The Drawings” and “Martin Puryear,” no big surprises in either case. While the Seurat had much wonderful work in it, it was maybe a tad larger than necessary – possibly because almost all of it was in black & white (& grey), very little color. The Puryear wasn’t really bad, large sculptures that often seemed to be made of wickerwork, and on occasion resembled animals like giraffes or kangaroos. The overall effect was gently whimsical, verging on cute. I guess if whimsy were a rarity on the postmodernist scene, I’d be attracted by its novelty, but as it is.... At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, I saw “Richard Prince: Spiritual America” and “Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945.” I liked Prince’s artistically-made fragment of an auto body on the ground floor, but most of the rest was slick photography taken out of the context of ads and placed in the context of a museum – classic dada, where the act is more important than the result. Maybe the reason this work sells for such high prices is because (unlike so much 21st century dada) it’s easily hung on a wall. I liked “Foto” almost as much as I thought I would, but most photographs in it that stood out for me turned out to have been taken by well-known figures – Moholy-Nagy, André Kertesz, etc. So – pleasure, definitely, but again few surprises. One really dazzling image: Moholy’s “Radio Tower, Berlin” (1928) – the camera is looking down – extraordinary! Talent really tells. 

At Sideshow in December was “Original Sins – Fred Gutzeit, Paintings; Peter Reginato, Sculpture.” Reginato had coated his metal frames with plastic, then painted his usual bright colors atop the plastic. The result was softer, more organic outlines to each piece. Gutzeit showed large abstracts with many small, organic black or white shapes within them, creating the feel of 60s op, though they were in fact derived from drawings of nature, especially waterfalls. I thought the front gallery of the show worked really well as a group, though the best individual pieces were mostly in the back gallery. The best Gutzeit was “OTT 22 and Calabi;” the best Reginato, “Little Mo in White.” 

A lovely show is “Morris Louis: Paintings” at Paul Kasmin (though January 19).  Roughly half the paintings in this show are from private collections, the other half from the estate, and the combination works well. The two most spectacular paintings are reproduced on the invite, but look even better in person, and while both incorporate familiar elements of Louis’s best-known works, they represent experiments that were not repeated. “Saf Dalet” is a veil, but an opaque veil, not a transparent one. The dominant color is a heated orange, whose resemblance to flame licking upward is reinforced by the black at the bottom and some narrow rust accents. “Theta Gamma” employs the swirling streaks of color we associate with the “unfurled” series, but instead of putting them at the sides of the canvas, Louis on this occasion sent them boiling up the middle. Fascinating! (It was nice to see that Roberta Smith gave this show a good writeup in the New York Times for January 11). 

When I walked into “Joyce Weinstein: ‘Country Fields’" at Ezair, I thought at first that I didn’t like it. In the past, I’ve sometimes had problems with Weinstein’s work, but I sat down and lived with these paintings for a few minutes and started taking notes on them and the end, decided that at their best, they were good. I thought at first, crude – these were big, crude outlines of circles, made of single strokes of oil stick, wobbly, uncertain-looking at first, but large, filling out the canvas and accentuated by framing boxes or wavy boundaries and/or complementary flecks of color. I thought next, dismaying, but at least, thank God, not cute. Next, my notes read, “serious/raw.” Some paintings were overdone, too much color or too many circles – the ones with the single circle worked best. Most had dark lines against blonder fields, but the best one in the show used a white circle against a darker field. This was “Country Fields with white,” and the white circle was juxtaposed with two rectangles, one yellow and one pink. Some paintings didn’t come off; but all had this gutsy, risk-taking quality that I welcomed. 

AND SO, TO THE LETTERS 

Fran Kornfeld is a subscriber to the print edition of FMD who accessed me on the web when her hard copy of the October 15 issue failed to arrive on time. Erik Bakke and Ronnie Landfield were mentioned in the October/December issue, and I emailed them to let them know this. With Landfield, I had discussed (& questioned) his custom of putting hard-edged bands of color across the bottom of his canvases. Darby Bannard and Kenworth Moffett were mentioned in the October/December issue. With their subscription copies, I enclosed covered letters pointing out where I’d mentioned them.  Bannard was featured in the supplement to the DeLuxe edition, so I sent him extra copies of the supplement, and pointed out that not everything I’d written about him was complimentary. These letters appear in the order in which they were received. 

From: IHKORNFELD@aol.com
To: piri@mindspring.com
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 12:03 PM
Subject: (no subject)  

Dear Piri: 

I have been reading your October issue of FMD in bits online because I have not received the hard copy yet, but considering all the things you are presently contending with, I completely understand the situation. I wish you a speedy and complete recovery and look forward to any subsequent issues once they are available.  

I was giving thought to the segment on artist "X." Writing criticism is not unlike making art; no one should tell an artist what to paint, sculpt, etc. Whether I agree with you, or any other critic of worth, or not, it is still clearly your given right to be able to express your feelings and opinions in print about anyone or anything. Artists should understand this more than the average reader. 

I hope your book project goes well, and I look forward to reading it once it is published.  

Warm regards, Fran 

From: RL
To: Piri Halasz
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 3:30 AM
Subject: Re: mentioning you

Hi Piri, 

Thank you, I’ve read your October/December issue with great pleasure and interest. I thought it was one of your best. I think there is suddenly a lot of fine work in play. The resurgence of abstract painting seems to continue – albeit slowly.  

I’m sorry to read that you weren’t well when we saw each other last at the Jacobson Howard opening.  

I’m also in group shows at the Charles Cowles Gallery, and Stephen Haller has some pictures, although I think Charlie’s November show is already changed. I might be in another show there in January [Landfield is in “Group Exhibition: Abstractions” at Cowles through February 2]. 

The issue of color-field painting or lyrical abstraction not being back yet as you addressed is at least on the table, whereas ten or fifteen years ago it was only a few scattered and planted seeds in a Duchampian wasteland. 

I’m very pleased with the opportunity to show my work at the Butler Institute of American Art and the chance to show at Heidi Cho. Both shows have been extended through the end of the year. I will send you a catalog. By the way Peter Young is one of my oldest friends and I’m happy that his work has gotten so much play this year too. 

I asked the Salander/O’Reilly Gallery to return all of my work to me in April 2007 and fortunately for me everything was returned by early June.

Piri – concerning me in NYC – and the hard edge stain bands that I’ve used: really throughout my entire career (more or less).  

I began my career in the mid-1960s when I was about 19. My paintings then were minimal, geometric, brushed and rollered fields of solid color with hard edge borders.  

I was in group shows at Park Place, Bykert, Bianchini, and the Whitney Museum among others in 1966, 1967 and 1968. I showed my first stained abstract paintings with hard-edge bands with David Whitney in 1969, and until he closed in 1972.  

I joined the André Emmerich Gallery in early April 1972 (the same week that my mother died) and my first show there (not stain painting) was in Feb. 1973. I showed there in 1974 and 1975 and in some group shows in Zurich until 1977.  

I returned to staining with bands in 1975 and I showed them in public again after I left André’s gallery. First in Seattle, then Baltimore and Washington DC and in NYC with Sarah Rentschler in 1978 and 1979. I joined the Charles Cowles Gallery in December 1979 and I was there until 1985. From 1986 until 1992 I showed with Stephen Haller. In 1997 I joined Salander/O’Reilly.  

The solid color bands on my paintings have been included in one form or another since the beginning. Clem and I always disagreed about the bands, he clearly preferred my paintings without them. I like to make paintings with em, and without them. One of my favorite paintings is “Diamond Lake,” the second or third painting that I made in 1969 with the large band on the bottom. It’s in the collection of MoMA. 

If you click on history an entire timeline will open up: http://www.ronnielandfield.com.The Butler show can be seen here: http://www.ronnielandfield.net. 

I hope you are well, happy holiday! 

All my best, Ronnie 

From: erik@erikbakke.com
To: "Piri Halasz" <piri@mindspring.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 3:35 AM
Subject: Re: mentioned you  

Dear Piri, Thank you for the mention and the very kind words. I've enjoyed reading your recent journal and found the hypergraphia, even, refreshing – though as of yet, truth be told, not all has been read closely. Your comments on Frankenthaler were welcome and your notes about the 40s and Duchamp struck a chord and I did read the entirety of the "On Criticism" section with interest. We certainly do not live in a period that values dialogue or truth. Sorry to hear about the complications with your health, and wishing you the best of luck with both your physical and mental well being and your manuscript – not to lump them all together. Best,Erik 

From: WBannard@aol.com
To: piri@mindspring.com
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 1:21 PM
Subject: from Darby  

That is some production! The special Bannard thing is just great & will undoubtedly come in handy – I will send a couple to Loretta [Howard] if you already haven't done so. 

Hey – I am grateful for all the negative stuff. When my work is appreciated again we will have evidence for a good old-fashioned "neglected genius" story. Everyone loves that kind of BS. 

Anyway - thanks! 

(The following was sent by Kenworth W. Moffett on Thursday, January 10, 2008, as an attachment through the computer of a neighbor, since Moffett’s computer was not working properly and I’d told him I needed his letter by January 10). 

Dear Piri, 

As you know, I have always been a fan of yours and of “From the Mayor’s Doorstep”. The latest issue is the best ever and has inspired me to write this letter. Also, I appreciate your pledge to publish letters to the editor. To me, your reporting is indispensable. I have nothing but admiration for your passion to go everywhere you can to keep all of us Greenbergers informed. I often find myself learning from, and agreeing with, your opinions about politics and art. When I saw you last, you seemed reborn, buoyant and open. This issue had the same energy and optimism. It made me hopeful. 

Also I think it’s great that you are engaging with the issues of “newness” and the “beyond Olitski” You are 20 years late; but better late then never. I have been involved with newness and the post-Olitski for many years but you don’t discuss my views or even mention them. You write as if you are the only person who ever thought these thoughts. You do mention the show I did at the invitation of André Emmerich in 1980 called “Curators Choice, the New Generation.” I was surprised to learn that you hadn’t seen the show. You seem unaware of a lot of what went on in the 80’s so let me make a few points for the record. 

I discussed the Emmerich show with Clement Greenberg. Indeed he was with me several times when I was selecting the paintings in New York and Toronto. If he strongly disagreed with me on any of it, he would surely have said so. As you say, it included Douglas Abercrombie, Joseph Drapell, Jennifer Durrant, Harold Feist, Paul Fournier, John Griefen, Darryl Hughto, Gottfried Mairwoger, John McLean, Kikuo Saito, Sandi Slone and Carol Sutton. 

I also had Clem read my catalogue introduction. He liked the piece but said “too early”. He proved to be right. These painters were all very good. They were among the best out there at the time. But, looking back, their work didn’t have anything very new or distinctive about it. They were not anywhere near as good as their forbears. Many continued to be good painters like John McLean, Harold Feist, Carol Sutton and John Griefen (whose work proved to be the strongest when the show was hung). They and other accomplished painters have been able to paint successfully within the orbit of Olitski and Color Field painting. I’m thinking of figures like Peter Bradley, Bob Scott, Susan Roth, Ronnie Landfield and others. Joseph Drapell is the only one who made himself a major figure, at least in my view. 

Three years later I did the show “Abstract Art in New England” at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Massachusetts. The artists were Willard Boepple, Steven Brent, Frank Campion, Rona Conti, Robert Cronin, Randi Glick, Jaqueth Hutchinson, Bety Kohlberg, Roy Lerner, Peter Lipsitt, Joyce McDaniel, Marjorie Minkin, Jill Nathanson, Dale Savit, David Shapiro, Sandi Slone, John Stephen, Gail Scott White, Michael Williams, and James Wolfe. 

Next, in 1986, I did another curators choice exhibition in the Fuller Building: “New Directions in Abstraction” at the Shippee Gallery. Did you see this one Piri?  It was a small gallery so I could only show 6 artists. They were John Gittins, William Gruters, Irene Neal, Bruce Piermarini, Marge Swan, and Jerry Webster. 

In the late 80’s I built the Hines corporate collection in Cambridge, Massachusetts which was open to the public for several years. The artists I choose were Tom Barron, Ken Beck, Rona Conti, Phil Darrah, Bruce Dunbar, Joseph Drapell, André Fauteux, Harold Feist, Terry Fenton, Rani Glick, Greg Hardy, Doug Haynes, Peter Hide, Terry Keller, Bety Kohlberg, Donald Langosy, Roy Lerner, Peter Lipsitt, Anthony Massett, Marjorie Minkin, Wynona Mulcaster, Jill Nathanson, George Nick, Graham Peacock, Mark Rausch, Peter Reginato, Milly Ristvedt, Susan Roth, Dale Savit, Susan Schapiro, Joseph Shannon, David Shapiro, Robin Shores, Carol Sutton, Marge Swan, Jerald Webster, Joyce Weinstein and Arthur Yanoff. 

Increasingly, I was seeing painters who had a different attitude. They wanted to challenge their forebears, to “make it new” and astonish the viewer. They knew that there would be failures, works that looked forced, but that risk was the only way forward. I wrote many times about all of this. Maybe, Piri, you ought to reread my old “Moffett’s Artletter” and the book “New New Paintings”, which I wrote in 1990 together with the Belgian critic Marcel Paquet and which accompanied an exhibition in Paris. 

With the New New Painters, the “New Generation” had finally appeared, and, amazingly, right around me. Leading the field was Lucy Baker who, in my view, is the largest personality within this generation, endowed as she is with Pollock like powers. You should be her champion. If anyone can be mentioned alongside Helen Frankenthaler it is her. 

The painters I associate with N. N. P. are: Lucy Baker, Gary Bandy, Steve Brent, Joseph Drapell, Bill Kort, Roy Lerner, Marjorie Minkin, Wil Murray, Irene Neal, Lauren Olitski, Declan O’Mahoney, Gerald Paire, Graham Peacock, Peter G-Ray, Bruce Piermarini, Gorden Terry, Jim Walsh, Jerald Webster and Ben Woolfitt. I am sure there are others who I don’t know of or am not current with. There is a big difference between these painters as regards to accomplishment and productivity but their works would all look compatible in a N. N. P. show, at least in my mind. (I am not dealing at all here with the great, surviving members of the older, Color Field generation which was the inspiration for these painters.) 

The New New emphatically does have something new and distinctive to say. They have been given many shows both here and abroad in both galleries and museums. No one has had any trouble seeing their newness. Their next show is scheduled for in Beijing in November.  

I did not coin the name “New New” but I often use it as a handy moniker. Nobody is married to the name. Many find it irritating. It could alternately be called “New Acrylic, 2.0” or “3rd Generation” or “3rd Wave” or something else. But we are talking here “Post Olitski”, even though Jules himself kept expanding his art with the development of the new medium and painted some very “Post Olitski” pictures. In the end then, “Post Olitski” is inaccurate and only a negative definition. But whatever we call it, the rise of this group coincides with the technological developments of the acrylic gels, reflective pigments and other plastic materials like Lexan, polyesters, vinyl, polyurethane, etc. This all started in the early 80’s not the 90’s as you claim. 

André Emmerich, who was a sponsor of the “New New Painters” show at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, told me at the opening that he agreed that this was the show we should have had back in 1980. He found the New New “fresh” and “exciting”. 

Karen Wilkin came to the Armory show twice. She is fun to look at art with. She correctly called the New New “full throttle painting”. She also told me before she left “keep going, we need you”. Whether because of competitiveness’ or political calculation, or mere circumstance, she never published her reactions. 

 You, on the other hand, came into the show with an angry look on your face. A number of us, including several of the painters, were standing there and everyone noticed it. So we were ready for your review. In it you ignored the ambition of the show and dismissed it as a “vanity” production. This was incorrect. There were many outside sponsors for the exhibition, some of whom were very generous as I point out in the catalogue. You liked this and that but mostly your message was, “don’t get too excited, I’m in control”. 

I noticed your defenses again when you came here to see my collection. I get a lot of visitors and I am always interested in, and sometimes delighted by, their reactions. Ann Walsh, for example, spontaneously said “Wow” when she came in. You barely glanced around the room, sat down, took out a notebook, and began to write. I invited you to rise and confront the pictures but you kept saying “I can see from here” and kept writing and interviewing me. Maybe your back was hurting. In any event, this is not the way Clem looked at art. I tried to draw you out but you had your agenda. You brought your opinions with you and left without a scratch. In your letter you didn’t deal with N. N. P. as a phenomena, a sensibility or an outlook and saved you enthusiasm for my Olitskis. You closed with a snide remark about me having “too many” of Lucy Baker’s paintings. 

Also, your outlook seems to me to be provincially New York. Perhaps if you had seen the magnificent series of group and one person shows staged over the last 10 years at the Museum of New New Painting in Toronto, you would have a different view. The N. N. P. generation is for the most part now in their 50’s and 60’s. There has been attrition but also additions. This group is larger today than ever and yet it exists with virtually no financial support! Here is the real story. Here is the heroism. 

The most outstanding younger members are Peter Ray (44) and Wil Murray (29). I am adding Lauren Olitski and Jim Walsh to my list on the basis of their recent show together at the Sideshow Gallery. I disagree with your take on this show. In my view, both of them showed more personality than ever before and did so by aligning their art more with New New sensibility and using the full range of what is now possible with acrylic artist paints. 

I do agree with you about Karen Wilkin’s show “Color as Structure/Structure as Color”, at the Bookstein Gallery. I was especially disappointed in Clay Ellis. He has done a few very unique and very New New paintings but none of them were here. To see a good one, check out page 312 of Roald Nasgaard’s wonderful new book “Abstract Painting in Canada”. 

As you say the only truly outstanding works in the show were those by Ann Walsh. I only liked the very small ones, but these were great. They had powerful color and real bounce. If they can develop and expand on their best pieces, Ann Walsh and Ellis could be major figures who would fit perfectly with the N. N. P. sensibility. You were perhaps over the top likening Ann to Frankenthaler at this stage, but I loved your wild enthusiasm. 

As regarding Clem, he liked most of the N.N.P. I am told he kept a copy of the “New New Painters” book by his desk. But when I started my Artletter he became very aggressive toward me. I felt driven away. It was my own competitiveness which kept me too far away from him. I will always regret that I didn’t know that he was in the hospital. Competitiveness often plays you false and usually is the enemy of truth telling. 

I want to invite you out again. We can discuss all this. I also advise that you visit the studios of Bruce, Graham, Lucy, Joseph, Marge, Irene, Wil Murray and Peter G-Ray. They would love it. I think if you got more involved, you would start to see it. Why not give me the benefit of the doubt? What have you got to lose? Are they not Greenbergers too? 

Another correction. The group of male critics and curators around Clem did not neglect Helen. I showed her with the other Color Field painters and also gave her a one person show as did E. A. Carmean. Henry Geldzahler and Charles Millard showed her too. We all acquired works by her for our museums. So did Terry Fenton. 

I have one more suggestion. Remember, great and original things are occasionally done under the banner of Post Modernism. I am thinking of certain pieces which I have seen over the years at the auction viewings by Julian Schnabel, Gerhard Richter, Cecily Brown, Jason Martin, Andy Warhol, Francesco Clemente and others. It is very eye opening to go to these viewings and I think your readers would enjoy reading about them. 

Let me close by saying again how much I admire most of what you do. Your letter is unique and invaluable for all of us who love modernism. 

Best Wishes, Ken 

AN AFTERWORD 

Four out of these five letters need no further comment (beyond saying thanks, & how droll & refreshingly adult was Bannard’s response to negative coverage). But I do want to respond to Moffett: first by saying, that all the Greenbergian world knows how much it owes to his labors over the years, not least in building a milieu in which contemporary Greenbergian art thrived in Boston in the 70s & 80s & for being responsible for so much good & great art being acquired for his museums and by many private collectors. His Abrams books on Noland and Olitski are indispensable parts of my library, and I found much pleasure and instruction in his “Artletter,” which I subscribed to from the first issue to the last. I am particularly grateful to him for writing this letter, and expressing his feelings so fully. I feel sure that many of my readers will welcome it, too. 

Did I see Moffett’s 1980 exhibition at Emmerich? No, I didn’t, & am almost equally ignorant concerning the vast majority of the work done by artists admired by Greenberg up until 1983.  When I was at Time, I learned about the work of Frankenthaler, Noland, Louis, Olitski and Poons. When I left it in ‘69 and went to London, Greenberg gave me an introduction to Caro, so I learned about him as well. In 1971, I returned to New York, but until l983, I saw gallery shows only by these six artists (especially Frankenthaler, since she kept me on her mailing list). Although I was friendly with Greenberg, I was deeply engaged in studying past art at grad school, and virtually all the other art I saw was earlier art. I did see the Caro retrospective at MoMA, the Noland retrospective at the Guggenheim, and I traveled to Boston to see the Olitski show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, but I made no attempt to keep in touch with the gallery scene as a whole beyond occasional visits to SoHo and the odd article I ran across in magazines in dentists’ waiting rooms, etc.  

Only after I’d deposited my dissertation and started preparing a series of articles out of it on art criticism & art history of the 40s v. the 80s did I re-awaken to the contemporary scene (I think my long absence from it helped me to perceive some things about it that people who had never left it were less aware of ). When those articles were published, many people discovered that I existed. I began getting invited to more openings, and met Moffett in early ‘83 at a symposium sponsored by AICA. He invited me up to see his show of the Gund collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. When I got there, he and Lucy Baker, then his fiancee, also gave me lunch; afterwards Baker drove me to see the Framingham show he mentions in his letter. We stopped at her studio on the way back to Boston, and she showed me some black paintings that I liked very much. 

Since 1983, and more especially since 1996, when FMD began, I’ve tried to keep up with what’s going on to the best of my abilities. I don’t think I’m provincial, or at least I’m as cosmopolitan as I can afford to be, but travel costs time & money, and my priorities differ from Moffett’s. For my October/December issue, I went to Washington DC (to see three historical shows), New Berlin NY (to see a show of contemporary art by a wide range of artists), and New Hope PA (to see an exhibition on the nude in contemporary art). I also reviewed a NYC show of Marjorie Minkin, a New New painter.  

The group shows by the New New Painters that I’ve seen had only 10 or 11 artists, most commonly Baker, Steven Brent, Joseph Drapell, John Gittins, Roy Lerner, Anne Low, Minkin, Irene Neal, Graham Peacock, Bruce Piermarini and Jerald Webster. I’ve reviewed all these shows, and always found individual works to admire, but I confess that I still can’t share Moffett’s blanket enthusiasm for the group, nor do I feel that what they as a group are doing is all that new as I understand the term. I did see the Shippee Gallery show (my most vivid recollection of it being a comment I heard later: Clement Greenberg, moaning about “Piermarini’s color”). I heard Greenberg speak favorably of Lerner’s talents, though, and have reviewed Lerner’s solo exhibitions in the New York area, as well as featuring him in the color supplement to the DeLuxe edition in 2004. Even when it hasn’t been feasible for me to review a New New show, I’ve at least mentioned it if somebody has sent me an announcement. I twice mentioned Neal’s show at Cooper Classics in NYC in 2001 (though I was overwhelmed during that whole period by 9/11 and its political implications). I went to Mt. Kisco NY to review a show by Low at the Westchester Center for the Arts, and in 2006 featured her work in the DeLuxe edition (Moffett doesn’t mention her as a member of the New News in his letter, but she’s one of the very best painters I’ve met through their shows). I’ve been to Boston, where I made studio visits to Tom Barron and Jaqueth Hutchinson; I featured the work of the latter in 2006 in the DeLuxe edition.  

Since 2004, I’ve made several trips to Hudson NY, to see exhibitions at the Hudson Opera House, Deborah Davis Fine Art and elsewhere of work by Paula De Luccia, George Hofmann, Arthur Yanoff, Lerner, Lauren Olitski, Susan Roth, Barron, Lisa Mackie, Michael Williams and others, but another confession I must make is that I react badly to the hard sell. What soured me right away on the New New’s Armory Show was the big list of donors & patrons on a flashy shocking pink piece of paper that was being distributed along with the catalogue right at the entrance to the show. It seemed to me a way of shouting “We all bought this art, therefore you should like it“ and I don’t like being told I should like anything. This same reluctance to be pressured into liking something makes me cautious about studio visits: in general, I only enjoy them when I’m already familiar with the artists’ work, usually from having seen it in public venues. I did make studio visits when I went to Syracuse in 2003, seeing work by Roth, Darryl Hughto, Mark Raush, Scott Bennett and Stephen Achimore. In 1998, I was honored by being invited to Edmonton, where I made a speech, saw and reviewed the ECAS exhibition and enjoyed studio visits with Mitchel Smith, Sheila Luck, Terrence Keller, Graham Peacock, Giuseppe Albi and I think maybe Robert Christie (?). In 1999, I saw a show in Miami of Bannard, and in Los Angeles in 2002 I paid a call on Shelley Herman. Other North American cities I’ve visited since I started writing the column, to review historical shows and/or cover College Art Association conventions, include Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto and Atlanta (seeing two splendid private collections, the last time CAA met in Toronto. I’d had a pleasant day with Drapell when I’d visited Toronto for CAA in the mid-90s, but his response to my review of the Armory Show had been so unpleasant that I didn’t feel like calling him again. Critics aren’t saints; if somebody is rude to them, they may react). 

I certainly enjoyed my visit to Moffett’s showplace for the New News in Stamford, though, and now wish that I had expressed my enthusiasm more emphatically than I did. I’m truly sorry that the fact I preferred to remain sitting told Moffett that I wasn’t interested. Really, it was only the back, which had been troubling me for years, and made it uncomfortable for me to stay standing for more than a few minutes, but I could see the art perfectly well from where I sat, and in my review, I did remark on the high quality of much of the work I saw. My complaint about the overabundance of Bakers was directed at the fact that they had crowded works by other members of the group off the walls, specifically Drapell and Webster, and I apologize if I expressed myself too enthusiastically about the Olitski, but it was an extraordinarily beautiful painting. Looking at works like it tells you what an excellent eye Moffett has. 

ON POLITICS 

With the arrival of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries, we are now entering the silly season, when candidates will say anything they think they can get away with, and dirty tricks abound, especially among disgruntled Republicans. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama won in Iowa, then Hillary won in New Hampshire. In both states, John Edwards came in third, and Bill Richardson, fourth – causing Richardson to pull out of the campaign. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee won in Iowa; in New Hampshire, the big winner was John McCain. Both pose big problems for any Democratic candidate, Huckabee because he’s parading as a feel-good middle-of-the-roader, while McCain likes to behave as though he had some liberal blood in him (both these appeals equating to the “compassionate conservatism” that George W. Bush promised the nation in 2000, and that turned out to be totally false).  

I only hope the Democrats can find a candidate able to counter these formidable appeals to a predominantly centrist- to right-wing electorate, but I’m afraid the three top contenders have negatives as well as positives – Hillary, who seems to inspire deep anger among sundry voters for the sort of flip-flops most politicians make, Edwards because I don’t think having a wife with Stage 4 cancer is an advantage, Obama because of his race (illuminating op-ed piece in the Times for January 10 by Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, on how pollsters consistently overrate the support for black candidates among voters). Still, all may not be lost. While seeking a permission to reprint, I had a very interesting phone conversation recently with a political scientist who correctly analyzed the electorate in 1990 as having been more conservative than other political scientists were saying it was. This time, he is optimistic about a liberal revival, saying that Obama has even some Republicans giving him favorable ratings. According to this man, Obama is seen not as promoting an African-American agenda, the way Jesse Jackson did, but as personifying “the American dream.” My response: “From your lips to God’s ears.”  

The joker in the pack may be the economy (as it was for Bill Clinton in 1992). The stock market is not doing well, unemployment is up and retail sales for the Christmas season were disappointing. Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has indicated that more interest rate cuts are on the way. They would make it easier to buy homes and otherwise stimulate the domestic economy, but also increase inflation, already at a frightening rate of 7 percent a year. Lower interest rates on US bonds will encourage foreign governments to shift their reserves into bonds issued by countries paying higher interest rates, causing the dollar to sink still further in relation to foreign currencies. This will make imported goods of all kinds more expensive for the American consumer....starting with the price of oil, already over $100 a barrel and inflating the cost of everything that moves on rubber tires, from Aunt Sadie driving to the supermarket to all the food she’ll find there. Given the fact that the Democrats are already in control of Congress, will this sorry situation work to the advantage of a Democratic Presidential candidate in November? Your guess is as good as mine..... (©Copyright 2008 by Piri Halasz)

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