Get Off the Internet
From an aesthetic point of view, the term “punk”—whether referring to a music genre, a fashion style, or a nonconformist attitude—has generated an incredibly diverse creati
Can and Should Artists Group Together for Their Mutual Benefit?
George Segal said a certain amount of “cruelty” in the art world is necessary for the making of good art, although one could reply that sufficient cruelty would exist in the ar
The Curator’s Lot
Back at A.I.R. again, there was at last an exception to panel chaos, perhaps because only two panelists—Marcia Tucker and Barbara Haskell, both of them Whitney curators—showed
Body of Work
Laurel Nakadate’s presentation, a standard chronological overview of her body of work, at New York University was surprisingly underwhelming. Apparently she’s much less provoca
Welcome to Post-Modernism
I went to this really weird panel last night called “Post-Modernism in Art and Literature,” only it was mostly John Simon, Michael Graves, and Hilton Kramer in the same room, s
The Emaciated Spectator
What is an audience? Anyone and anything, really: concert ticket holders, participants in a political rally, a random gathering of passersby. A filmmaker or playwright certainly wa
Solo Searching
Moderator Ronald Jones began the discussion promising that “the ’80s changed theory and the function of criticism in major ways,” but the panelists did not address the histor
And Then We’ll Dissolve the State
The panelists did not all profess to be Marxists, but each addressed the question of being an artist, art worker, or cultural within a class system. The function of art and its tra
Baby Got Back
Clearly the editors of a new comics anthology heard the phrase “I’m a feminist, but…” one too many times. Taking a firm stance against the equivocal and perhaps self-deprec
An Influx of Influences
Influence is a tricky, elusive thing. The organizers of an exhibition at the Visual Arts Gallery in Chelsea, Amy Smith-Stewart and Carrie Lincourt, confront the topic as it related