Making It New: Essays, Interviews, and Talks - Softcover

Geldzahler, Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156004399 ISBN 13: 9780156004398

Publisher: Mariner Books, 1996

Synopsis

This is Geldzahler's (longtime curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) written legacy, a collection of essays, interviews, and talks covering three turbulent decades in which he and the artists he championed defined what was new and important in contemporary art. Foreword by David Hockney.

About this title

From the Back Cover

For the past 35 years, Henry Geldzahler, controversial first curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Twentieth Century Art, has been at the center of America's lively and vital art scene. Making It New is the first collection of his essays, interviews and talks, and includes work that has never been published. His style is disarmingly intimate, insightful and amusing. In this generous selection of writings Henry Geldzahler is always an enchanting guide to a world of innovative artistic activity. He is master of a particularly informal interview style which allows artists as diverse as Frank Stella, Alice Neel and Louise Bourgeois to reveal fresh insights to their methods and intentions. His essays on photography, on "The Sixties" and his commencement address remind us of Calvin Tompkins' comment in "The Scene" that Henry Geldzahler's effect (as teacher) was phenomenal. "Students...were mesmerized by his brilliant, amusing perception on every imaginable subject." These extraordinary writings are filled with high spirits, humor, literary charm and skillful connoisseurship.

About the Author

Henry Geldzahler (1935, Antwerp, Belgium―August 16, 1994, Southampton, New York ) was a well-known curator of contemporary art in the late 20th century. Unlike most curators at the time, he befriended many of the artists he was interested in, and socialized with them as if he were just another artist. Artists he associated with included Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and Larry Stanton.

He worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he eventually organized the landmark exhibition, New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970, which included his favorite contemporary work.

From 1977 until 1982, he was the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for New York City, having been appointed by Mayor Edward I. Koch.

Geldzahler is the subject of a documentary called Who Gets to Call It Art? by Peter Rosen.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0156004399
• ISBN 13: 9780156004398
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384