(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

This has been what might be called a miraculous year for Peter Bradley. After decades of being nearly if not entirely ignored, his painting has been included in no fewer than three exhibitions.  One was a show of contemporary artists organized by Hilton Als, the New Yorker theater critic. Second was a tribute to the "De Luxe Show," an interracial exhibition organized by Bradley in 1971 (I reviewed this tribute on September 5).  Third (in Karma's space at 22 East Second Street, through November 13) is the one I review below.  It is a solo show of nine pictures made by Bradley over the past six years.  They range in size from medium to large and though I didn't relate equally to all of them, on the whole I'd call this an exceedingly  handsome show – a real tour de force for a man of 81.  Read More 

I am sorry to report that I have been suffering from some sort of a stomach bug for the past week or so.  It may even have contributed to the bleakness of my report on "The Medici" last week.  As I think it unfair to continue to take out my negative emotions on helpless pictures and sculpture, I have decided to foreswear reporting on the art scene for the next few weeks – or until I have this bug of mine firmly in the rear-view mirror. Think of it as the summer vacation I never got around to taking.

I do have a small amount of reading matter to offer – written not by me, but by several of my readers.

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Way back in 1971, 31-year-old Peter Bradley curated "The De Luxe Show." Held in a disused movie house in Houston's historically African-American Fifth Ward, it was one of the first, maybe even the first of the major racially-integrated exhibitions in the U.S.  Now two galleries are honoring its 50th anniversary with exhibitions.  The Los Angeles show is at Parker, 2441 Glendower Avenue (through September 18).  The New York show is at Karma, 188 East Second Street (through September 25).  I've only seen the Karma exhibition, but believe me folks, it's a wow. Read More 

On the Hudson River, north of Kingston, stands the picturesque town of Saugerties (population 19,000). On its outskirts lives Peter Bradley, the painter, in a handsome 18th century stone house.  Downtown Saugerties is home to Emerge, a pocket-sized gallery that is currently housing a real humdinger of a show, "Peter Bradley: New Work" (through June 30).  Though this show contains only six paintings, and the largest is only a little over 6 feet tall, every one's a winner. Read More 

I couldn't face all those talks at the annual conference of the College Art Association this year, but as the conference was held in Manhattan, I did mosey on down to the New York Hilton to enjoy the Smithsonian's reception for its alumni and to look at the CAA's book exhibits.   As with the art world as a whole, postmodernism and identity politics for the most part upstaged esthetics, both in the choice of subjects for books and in the way that these subjects were dealt with, but still I found a handful of tomes that interested me and that I would have bought had I a) the money b) the space to put them in and c) the time to do them justice by reading them carefully and all the way through. Read More