In Terms Of

Tag: Irving Sandler

  • Good Ol’ Boys of the Appalachian Connection

    This week the College Art Association is holding its 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC. In recognition of the event, In Terms Of is republishing four reviews of sessions from CAA’s 1979 conference, which also took place in the nation’s capital, on topics still relevant to the art world today.

    Recurring Regionalism: The Southern Rim
    Friday, February 2, 1979
    67th Annual Conference, College Art Association, Washington Hilton Hotel, Monroe Room, Washington, DC

    Moderator: William R. Dunlap
    Panelists: John Alexander, John Canaday, William Christenberry, Larry Edwards, Jim Roche, and James Surls

    Cynthia Navaretta, “Good Ol’ Boys of the Southern Rim” Women Artists News 5, no. 1 (May 1979): 11

    John Canaday, for those of you too young to remember, used to be senior art critic on the New York Times, and hence, some felt, the most powerful art critic in the country. I remember a Sunday column of his about a woman in the art department of Appalachian [State] University who had put together an exhibition so fine that he praised it unstintingly. This was particularly impressive to a New Yorker because at the time the very name of the university conjured up an isolated pocket of insularity where it was hardly expected art would be taught, let alone exhibited—and abstract art at that. Canaday’s Appalachian connection appeared again at College Art [Association], as we saw him on the panel, “Recurring Regionalism: The Southern Rim.” (The title came from an earlier conference of the same name.)

    Moderator William R. Dunlap of Appalachian [State] University acted like a suave cosmopolitan—that is, until he exhibited all the worst characteristics the rest of the country might attribute to New Yorkers. He was rude, egotistical, insulting, arrogant, uncaring, and crude. He also made a great show of swilling bourbon from a prominently displayed bottle. Typical of this Southern gentleman’s behavior was his reply to Elsa Fine’s question from the floor about the absence of women, or even one good ol’ girl, on the panel with the good ol’ boys. It was OK, Dunlap said, because there were two homosexuals on the panel.

    Having arrived late, I missed the opening presentation of slides, but I was in time to hear John Alexander entertain the audience with anecdotes from the past year which he had spent traveling the country in the role of famous artist, accepting recognition and success. He declared himself on the side of minority artists (Chicanos) but definitely against New York lady art critics with briefcases. (One had spent no more than three minutes scanning his show before writing a several-page magazine article.) He was bemused by Lions Club audiences who, in Lions Club tradition, roared approval of his witticisms rather than applauding. His other adventures ranged the country both sociologically and geographically. Alexander enchanted the CAA audience in general, the women less so.

    James Surls, apparently the only member of the panel concerned with human values, was generous in crediting the Dallas Women’s Co-op with opening up the art scene there. They did all the work, he said—politicking, letter writing, and the rest—that made it possible to exhibit art in Dallas outside the museum. He said he himself “rode in on the coat tails.”

    Discussion continued as, by and large, a series of rambling non sequiturs. Members of the audience seemed to feel compelled to make statements themselves, like at a revival meeting, and their random statements, usually irrelevant to the discussion, prompted other remotely connected observations. One item surfacing in this manner was the moderator’s statement that New York had “closed down for young artists.” He attributed that to Marcia Tucker’s departure from the Whitney. (Maybe it was the bourbon.)

    This profundity was followed by an editor of Art Voices South—an expensively glossy magazine dedicated to praise of Southern artists—who got to his feet in the audience to say that the magazine covers twenty-two Southern states and is trying to attract an audience not accustomed to going to galleries. The panel responded very warmly to this and the subject of regional art came up—whether the South was producing any, whether any Southern state had ever produced any. Washington, DC, got some credit here, specifically the Washington Color School, but that was quickly dismissed by a panelist—Canaday perhaps—as a “suburban” expression of New York Abstract Expressionism.

    Well, things just moved along. Soon Alexander spoke in recognition of the people of Iran—he felt they should be honored for “standing up and getting rid of a cancerous tyrant.” (This was the week of street riots in Iran.) Dunlap even managed an insulting joke on the subject. Then Margaret Gorove, chairperson of the art department at the University of Mississippi—and former teacher of moderator Dunlap—got to her feet to say, first, that a proper grad of Ole Miss would have kept the bottle in a paper bag, and second, to describe the very real problems of women artists in the South. She pointed out that, as is well known, women do well in blind-juried shows but aren’t included in invitationals, not having had the exposure or experience.

    Moderator Dunlap’s response to this serious and impassioned statement was, “Let me say, I love your hair, and the color of your dress.” Gorove, resigned, even gentle, replied, “You haven’t changed a bit.” Dunlap then felt it necessary to go on record with, “I make no apology for the sexual make-up of this panel.”

    Alexander added quickly that he himself is concerned with the problems of women artists and is aware of prejudice against them and minorities. But, he claimed, the previous night’s panel. “Modern Art and Economics,” had been “all big names, all men, and no one brought the issue up there.” Aggrieved at what he saw as discrimination against the Southern panel, Alexander wanted to pursue the topic. “I recommend we continue and go for the throat” (which throat he didn’t say).

    Surls mentioned that, having found the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston without a director, curator, or scheduled exhibition, he had grabbed the free slot to do a show of one hundred Texas artists (Fire!). He may have intended to say women as well as men were included, but never got to it, because next came Robert Pincus-Witten from the audience.

    Bitingly sarcastic about Art Voices South’s self-congratulatory tone and self-serving ways, Pincus-Witten said that “without a critical voice for the Southern Rim you’ll be back on this panel continuing this conversation for the rest of your lives.” Only the development of a critical voice can bring Southern artists recognition from the rest of the country, he said.

    Canaday didn’t see it that way. “American art would have been better off without all the known critics,” said the former known critic. He quoted from an essay by Harold Rosenberg: “Artists are faced with a wall of opinion—a formulated taste dictating the direction of art.” Canaday advised us that “what is really needed is a buying public for the arts.” (An exemplary opinion, certainly.)

    Next it was Irving Sandler’s turn. Sandler said from the audience that there was “more energy, more wit in this panel” than any he had heard in New York. That seemed like a good time to leave.

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    Source

    Written by Cynthia Navaretta, “Good Ol’ Boys of the Appalachian Connection” was originally published in Women Artists News 5, no. 1 (May 1979): 11; and reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 120–21. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.

     

  • Nice Guys Finish

    A Talk with the Critics: Ben Davis, Carol Kino, Andrew Russeth, and Benjamin Sutton in Conversation with Sharon Louden
    Wednesday, September 23, 2015
    New York Academy of Art, Wilkinson Hall, New York

    The journalist Carol Kino (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    Two years ago I stopped attending panels of art critics discussing the state of the field, mainly because the subjects such events would cover could easily be predicted: (1) money, and how there is little to be made writing about art; (2) a perceived loss of power in the art world, ceded to dealers, curators, and collectors; and (3) the differences between writing for print and online publications. Speakers overwhelmingly wrung their hands over problems that have existed for decades. The numbing repetition—I can’t even.

    I almost skipped this “Talk with the Critics” panel, part of a series moderated by the artist Sharon Louden on professional-development issues for MFA students, for fear of more of the same.1 But I was familiar with and respect the work of the four New York–based participants—Ben Davis, national art critic for Artnet News; Carol Kino, a journalist for the New York Times and other mainstream newspapers and magazines; Andrew Russeth, co–executive editor of ARTnews; and Benjamin Sutton, metro editor at Hyperallergic—and decided to give it a shot.2 The level of discourse was reasonable and pedestrian. That’s not surprising, considering Louden’s focus for the series is to demystify the work and approachability of critics for the academy’s graduate students. What follows are summaries of the major topics.

    Why Write Criticism?

    In college Russeth attempted to make art, unsuccessfully, so he studied art history. After studying with Rosalind Krauss, who “was a force of nature … [who] really made the stakes seem very high,” Russeth became attracted to what he perceived as the glamor of art criticism, deferring a halfhearted interest in law school. Sutton covered film, theater, and art for his school paper, and Kino came from a similar background—wanting to write about culture. Falling in with an art crowd in New York, she discovered she had a good eye. Davis, who studied cultural theory and philosophy in school, was introduced to the art world via Rachel K. Ward’s ill-fated group exhibition Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy Airport, where he met the artist and writer Walter Robinson, who invited Davis to work for Artnet Magazine, which he edited. Artforum had deceived Davis into thinking that art was a place for ideas: “The art world is where important ideas go to die,” he joked.

    Andrew Russeth on the left (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    What Do You Look For?

    For Sutton, the lure to write about the big show was stronger when he was younger; now he finds it more rewarding, for example, to travel to out-of-the-way places and spend more time with fewer shows. Russeth aims to reset the balances where critical consensus is skewed or wrong, and also “to get people’s eyeballs on something new.” As a journalist, Kino looks for a good story, often on current events with “some meaty sociopolitical aspect.” “I look for a sense of contemporaneity,” Davis said, which he sometimes finds in older art, which can become relevant again.

    How Do You Find New Things?

    Louden tried to get a conversation going about Instagram, but the four critics had other ideas. “People drop casual comments at dinner parties,” Kino said; she also depends on friends who are artists and publicists. “The artists always know,” Russeth affirmed, identifying younger, plugged-in dealers and even collectors as those offering good recommendations. Davis rephrased the question to uncover the panel’s not-so-hidden motive: “How do you get written about?” Instead of boilerplate invitations, Davis said, write something personal, like “You may like my work for this reason.” Kino advised artists to time their pitches right for a publication—which may publish a review while an exhibition is still on view, or months later. She hesitates to carrying on correspondence with artists who don’t have galleries, or whose work isn’t appropriate for galleries, because her outlets are not interested in covering unusual situations. Sutton, who wades through press materials daily, recommended that prospective artists contact him by email, not phone or Facebook. Rather than brownnose with critics, Russeth said, he advocated artists to “start a gang,” reiterating an idea from Dave Hickey. “The best way to do it is to have a big group … have curator friends, have artist friends, have writer friends,” all of who can promote your work to others.3

    Can Critics and Artists Be Friends?

    Russeth has no problem with it, though unfavorable writing can lead to disappointment. Sutton finds it inevitable that artists and critics form relationships and views the separation between them to be old fashioned. Kino reminded us that an even older school—dating to the 1950s—fraternized comfortably. Davis cautioned against losing the balance between insight and embeddedness; he also recognized that “an honest review” in intimate art scenes outside New York “would mean severing all these relationships.” And then: “I don’t have a hard and fast rule except to be honest about it, if you’re writing about someone who you have knowledge of.” Regarding Robert Morris’s personal relationship with Krauss, Davis said, “A lot of art history formed by people who knew each other very intimately. You’d be foolish to overlook that as a source.”

    The contemporary Ben Davis (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    What’s Up with Listicles?

    Louden identified lists, such as “6 of Our Favorite Hamburger-Themed Artworks for National Burger Day” and “14 Young Power Players Set to Become the New Art World Aristocracy,” as a recent trend in art writing. The format, Davis claimed, is cheap to produce and does well—much better than reviews of small shows in Bushwick. The BuzzFeedification of discourse has spawned the entertainment article about art, he said, adding that it’s new to have an audience “amused by art.” While ARTnews publishes intelligent lists, Russeth revealed that the well-researched article gets an audience over time. Sutton argued that a well-written listicle can be informative.

    What Are the Issues in Painting?

    The audience Q&A started with an inquiry about contemporary painting. Russeth singled out a couple of schools in play—the networked painting of R. H. Quaytman and postinternet art—and told us he has to argue for painting’s relevance when writing about the medium. (Really, still?)  Sutton seeks what looks new or demonstrates a variation, break, or improvement in any medium, and Kino digs for personal stories and avoids theoretical discussion.

    From the crowd, the art historian and critic Irving Sandler—who began writing in the 1950s and was friends with many Abstract Expressionists—pressed the issue further. Davis ducked the question to ask his own: “What is art?” Kino placed the burden on artists, while Sutton stressed the need to pay attention to art scenes outside New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Online publications such as Burnaway and Pelican Bomb do that well, he said. (Louden added Bmore Art.) Russeth argued that criticism can be a tool to counteract obscene amounts of money circulating in the art world, and also to upend male white dominance.

    What Do You Love and Hate in Writing?

    Sutton likes writing about art that he doesn’t get initially, that gives him a new perspective. Kino hates an opinionated reviewer’s personality coming through strongly. “I like original ideas, plainly stated—that’s pretty boring,” Davis said, noting that his monthly roundup of art writing for Artnet News demonstrates his interests—though I notice that he recently sought recommendations for the list on social media. Russeth loves criticism that lays it on the line—he wants opinion, writers coming out swinging and being risk takers. “That’s what leads to better art,” he declared.

    Benjamin Sutton on the mic (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    What about Trends and Brands?

    Figurative art has roared back over the past ten to fifteen years, Russeth pronounced, partly because critics and historians have broadened their view. “People like Joan Semmel, Martin Wong, Philip Pearlstein—I mean, they’ve never looked better, right?” He explained, “It’s no longer necessarily a zero sum game, which when I read art history, it kind of feels like it once was.” For Davis, “contemporary” has eclipsed terms like postmodern or pluralism, an issue he explored in his 2013 book 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. When teaching painters, video makers, and performance artists, he observed, “The question, implicitly, that’s there, without being proposed, is, what are we all learning that’s the same?” Instead of having a unifying theory of it all, Davis detects a herd mentality in galleries, where “consensus about what was competent” has replaced “consensus about what was good and bad.”

    Sutton has witnessed an acceleration of branding in culture, when fashion crosses over into the hip, cool art world. The fast-fashion retailer H&M, he said, collaborated with Jeff Koons last year to produce a handbag. (Don’t forget about Takashi Murakami’s popular monogram bags for Louis Vuitton.) Taking a long view, Davis connected the early-nineteenth-century Romantic view of the artist with the Industrial Revolution. By the late 1990s, he sketched out, the fashion industry had evolved from producing couture for the few to cranking out ready-to-wear clothes for the masses, with designers producing sunglasses, cosmetics, and perfume. Huge conglomerates now use art to recapture high fashion’s exclusivity. “The whole point is that there’s a tension” between art and fashion, Davis concluded, not a synthesis.

    What’s Your Definition of Art?

    Russeth said that art, at its best, is a protected field to talk about things you can’t talk about elsewhere, in a safer and fuller way. He left out “through objects and images.” Sutton agreed but emphasized that art is not protected because it is permissive. Davis noted that art is a general term for excellence—an advertisement can be so good that it is art—so what is fine art? The tradition, the museum and gallery culture, and economically (a person with control over his or her labor). Earlier Kino had passed the microphone to Davis but got it back, saying “You know it when you see it.” She added that art constantly redefines what is art.

    In Terms Of count: 9.

    1 I spoke on a “Talk with the Critics” panel with Hrag Vartanian and Lily Wei in November 2013.

    2 Sutton was my editor at the L Magazine in 2011–12.

    3 Russeth misattributed the quote, slightly. Here is Hickey: “That’s why I still endorse Peter Schjeldahl’s advice on how to become an artist: ‘You move to a city. You hang out in bars. You form a gang, turn it into a scene, and turn that into a movement.’” What Russeth left out was the final step: “Then, I would suggest, when your movement hits the museum, abandon it.” Hickey, “Romancing the Looky-Loos,” Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (Los Angeles: Art Issues Press, 1997), 152.

    Watch

  • No More “X Over Y Equals Fog”

    What Artists Want from Critics / What Critics Expect from Criticism and from Artists
    Friday, November 17, 1978
    Artists Talk on Art, New York

    Moderator: Irving Sandler

    Panelists: Leon Golub, Philip Pearlstein, Jeff Perrone, Deborah Remington, Corinne Robins, and Barbara Zucker

    What do artists want from critics? Barbara Zucker answered for us all: “I want them to be my fairy godmother, champion my career, say I’m a genius, and stand behind me unequivocally.”

    Although she and others went on to discuss the importance of dialogue and the wonderful insights that artists might derive from criticism of their work, nothing rang as true as these opening remarks. Criticism may be literature, may even be “an art form,” as Jeff Perrone insisted, but for artists, criticism is chiefly survival. Good reviews mean sales, jobs, grants, and more shows. Bad reviews or no reviews mean oblivion.

    This was the conflict that ran through the entire evening, artists trying to build some safeguards into the practice of criticism, critics insisting on their right to self-expression.

    Philip Pearlstein and Leon Golub were the most outspoken about the unequal power relationship between artists and critics. Pearlstein has been crusading on the subject for some time now, and opened the discussion by reading his guidelines for art criticism, published in Art Journal (Winter 1977–78). An established artist, Pearlstein did not need to take such a controversial stand. and deserves the respect of all artists for doing so. (In a conversation after the panel, he noted that, although he didn’t want to seem paranoid, his exhibition shortly after the article was published was the least written about he’d had.)

    Pearlstein’s principal point is that an artist’s career is vulnerable to a critic’s power. Golub added that critics present ideas, but artists have no way of responding to or offsetting those ideas. Critics have access to the public; artists can only gain that access through pleasing critics, or curators and dealers. “The main problem the artist faces is how to get to the public,” said Golub.

    So, willy-nilly, the critic presents the artist to the public. Although most artists, on and off the panel, were of the opinion that critics with nothing good to say should just say nothing, Corinne Robins pointed out that this is not always possible. She differentiated between the short journalistic review, usually done on assignment, and the long critical article, which is more often the critic’s choice. “What are we supposed to do when we have to write about a show we don’t like?” she asked. “Differentiate carefully between opinion and fact and present the facts as fairly as possible,” said Pearlstein. The short review was disdained by all critics on the panel, but Pearlstein pointed out that it frequently is the only historical record of a show, particularly for a young artist.

    How does the artist get to the critic? Don’t call or send said one and all. And don’t expect us to come to your studio unless we already know and like your work. “Critics see lots of shows,” said Irving Sandler. “We hear about interesting things and then we go to see them.” (“Critics see with their ears,” mumbled a cynic near me.) Like love, these things are just supposed to happen. But as we women-who-are-artists and artists-who-are-women know, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes action to falling in love.

    Was there anything the panel could agree on? Everyone was down on nasty writing, on dense impenetrable prose (Deborah Remington called this “x over y = fog”), and everyone agreed on the necessity for a personal encounter with the work, rather than with photographs and press releases. But that was it. Critics discounted any feeling of power they might enjoy and claimed they were at the mercy of editors. Artists insisted they are at the mercy of critics. The artists wanted critics to listen to their ideas about their work. Perrone, who said he didn’t know any artists, any art history, or what happened in the ’50s, said, “There’s no need to talk, or listen, or go to artists’ studios.” Unfortunately, artists cannot so easily discount the work and ideas of critics.

    Some years ago, June Wayne made a succinct analysis of power relationships in the art world. “The artist is a woman,” she said, and detailed the ways in which artists, like women, must act through others, be devious and use flattery and other “feminine” wiles to survive. Although no such brilliant feminist analysis emerged from this panel, it was a good solid attempt to deal with the issues on at least the first of the three questions of the title, “What Artists Want from Critics.” The other two questions got lost in the shuffle and were never really answered.

    Letter to the Editor

    The following letter arrived in response to the report above:

    The positions I stated on “What Artists Want/What Critics Expect” are not even remotely recognizable in Patricia Mainardi’s writeup.

    Her review of the panel appears to make me a supporter of Philip Pearlstein’s “crusading” on the subject of art criticism. I do not subscribe to his position and made comments in precise opposition to it…. I tried to point out that the making of art and the criticism of art face (obviously) similar problems of definition and context in relation to how information today (which includes the look of art) is picked out and distributed. Mainardi missed (or ignored) all that.

    Pearlstein made a big point of accusing critics of blanketing out realist painting. This [is] far off the mark and an incorrect perception, particularly in his case….

    The crux or irony of the situation is this: Mainardi quotes Pearlstein as asking critics to “Differentiate carefully between opinion and fact and present the facts as fairly as possible.” But she is as irresponsible in reporting on the panel as the critics (unnamed) she and Pearlstein find wanting.

    —Leon Golub, Manhattan

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    Source

    Written by Patricia Mainardi, “No More ‘X Over Y Equals Fog’” was originally published in Women Artists News 4, no. 7 (January 1979). Leon Golub’s letter was originally published in Women Artists News 4, no. 8 (February 1979). Both texts were reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 108–9. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.

  • Real Estate: Living and Working

    On the Needs of Visual Artists: A Roundtable
    Monday, March 19, 2001
    Artists Space, 38 Greene Street, Third Floor, New York, NY

    On March 19, 2001, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation and the Judith Rothschild Foundation cosponsored a roundtable discussion on the needs of visual artists. Irving Sandler and Robert Storr, members of the Artists Advisory Committee of the Sharpe Art Foundation, facilitated the discussion, which was hosted by Artists Space in New York. The event was also a follow-up to a discussion held on the same topic in 1988. Below is a short section on gentrification and real estate from the 2001 roundtable.

    Real Estate: Living and Working

    Artists get gentrified out of the neighborhoods they’ve rescued. Can real-estate professionals and activists be hired or made available to advise artists? Can mortgages or loans be made available to make ownership possible? Is the dispersal that gentrification creates necessarily bad, or can it be renewing?

    Fred Wilson: Certainly housing is an important thing. I think one of the most stabilizing things for me was buying my loft. Having something of your own does mean a bit more longevity and more time for your work.

    Alison Saar: Many artists still have convertible kitchens that they’re working out of. But, I think, especially for a sculptor it becomes more of an issue: you want your studio space to be accessible, but it usually can’t be in your neighborhood or in your home because other people just go berserk.

    Bruce Pearson: About twenty years ago I moved to Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Over a period of about ten years, more and more and more artists started moving into this neighborhood. And after I had been there for seventeen and a half years, having a nice affordable loft, the building got sold. I lost my loft. I couldn’t find a space in my neighborhood; it’s become a very popular neighborhood and the rents have just skyrocketed and a lot of artists that have been over there for many years are getting kicked out and they have no place to go. I had thought that you could always find an affordable new artists’ neighborhood, that there was always a community of younger artists starting up new neighborhoods. But during that time I found that there wasn’t; it was getting really scattered all over the place: Red Hook, Harlem, Queens. I was stuck into exile up in Greenpoint. There are a lot of buildings that are being threatened right now and it seems that the loft laws just aren’t strong enough. It will be really interesting to see if artists that have developed communities throughout the years could find some way to secure their situation when they do develop something.

    Nancy Bowen: I had a loft in TriBeCa for many years, moved my studio to Williamsburg, which seemed like the middle of nowhere about eleven years ago, and I’m just now facing having to move out of that studio because it’s being developed for luxury living lofts.

    At this point in my life I don’t want to move somewhere for a year or two years. So with a group of people I’m trying to get a long-term lease on a building or possibly buying one. But how do you go about doing all this? It’s all stuff I don’t know anything about—things like zoning issues and mortgages and legal issues. Clearly there are already people who know how to do all this. It would be great to have a clearinghouse of real-estate information for artists’ needs. It could be made available in one place that artists could come to and save a lot of time that doesn’t need to be spent in the real-estate business. This could be information added to the Hotline.

    Also, it could be very helpful to somehow set up a way to help artists get mortgages, since we often don’t look financially good on paper.

    Alexander Ross: What if an individual who was an organizer was paid for a period of time, a year, say, to go into a specific neighborhood, say Williamsburg, and figure out on a grassroots level the actual needs of the artists, and do the work of creating a new loft law there, or developing resources? Someone who was paid to devote time, because we need all the time we have to work on our work.

    Janet Fish: If a group of artists found an empty building and wanted to convert it to work space—which doesn’t require all the kinds of things that you need for residential—they would probably not be able to get a loan from a bank. For a long time I had hoped that some foundation might turn up that would be willing to help in this way: if a group of artists made a presentation they could get a loan and then slowly pay it back, and that money could go to another group, and it could just sort of work around the country. It wouldn’t have to just be New York.

    Alexander Ross: There should be some way that artists could stay permanently in the places that they carve out. The dispersal of culture in New York is a huge problem: if it gets spread too thin and people get pushed out too far, the energy and the vitality of the art scene is diminished. There should be some way that individual artists could get on the road to having a mortgage for their studio, and to actually own and be able to stay put in the location instead of being blown by the wind to one neighborhood and the next.

    Bruce Pearson: Every generation of artists needs space to work. And they generally go to areas where they can find cheap large spaces or warehouse spaces. For a while it was SoHo, Chelsea, Tribeca, and then Williamsburg and now Greenpoint. And it seems like it is spreading like crazy now. I think that artist communities are just developing in a natural manner.

    Irving Sandler: So we’re in a situation of dispersion and we’ve got to begin thinking of how, with this dispersion, we create communities again.

    Bruce Pearson: Well, it’s really interesting because, right now, I don’t know where the community is. It seemed like it used to be that each generation was kind of localized. And now the real-estate market seems to have forced young artists all over, everywhere from Newark to Red Hook.

    In Terms Of count: 0.

    Source

    “Real Estate: Living and Working” was originally published in Amy Newman, ed., On the Needs of Visual Artists: A Roundtable 2001 (Colorado Springs: Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, 2002), 14–17. In Terms Of thanks the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation for permission to republish this text.

    Read

    Elizabeth Flock, “Artists Want to Stay Put by Buying a Building Together. This Is Their Blueprint,” Bedford and Bowery, February 24, 2014.

    Alexandra Glorioso, “Bushwick Artists: Maybe We Should All Just Buy a Building Together?,” Bedford and Bowery, June 20, 2013.

    Vera Haller, “In Bushwick, Artists Try to Rewrite Gentrification’s Usual Story,” Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2013.

    Arit John, “Gentrifying Artists Whine about Gentrification,” Wire, August 2, 2013.

    Whitney Kimball, “Ten Takeaways on Rent Reform: ‘Talk to Your Neighbors,’” Art F City, April 1, 2014.

    John Powers, “New Ideas Need Tall Buildings: Gentrification vs Integration – Flying Wedges vs Rooted Anchors,” Star Wars Modern, November 13, 2013.

    William Powhida, “Redefining the Role of the Artist,” Art F City, April 4, 2014.

    William Powhida, “There’s Always a Problem, Sometimes There’s a Solution: Internal Thoughts from a Collective,” Big Red and Shiny, October 15, 2013.