David Johansen, Dee Dee Ramone and Alan Vega in the Foreground at Max's Kansas City, 1974 Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery
Painting may never have died completely but there was a moment, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when its dominant conventions felt hopelessly inadequate. Abstract Expressionism, with its emphasis on autonomy and the sublime, held little interest for a radicalized avant-garde; conceptual art, which could more easily incorporate music and performance, seemed like a better way to respond to new political currents and the counterculture. Moreover, for many intellectuals energized by the New Left not only abstraction, but all painting, fell under suspicion. Whereas Clement Greenberg and his Continue reading
Email This Post
