David Bourdon's Complete New York Art Season, 1976-77

Excerpt of October and November 1976 from David Bourdon, "A Critic's Diary: The New York Art Year," in Art in America, Summer 1977

"Mr. Bourdon wrote for many art magazines and was a frequent contributor to Art in America, for whose 1977 summer issue he produced a memorable diary-style, show-by-show review of the entire New York art season, a marathon task he never attempted again."

– Holland Cotter, "David Bourdon, 63, Art Critic With Expertise in Modern Genres,"
The New York Times, April 3, 1998

I'm tempted to post art critic David Bourdon's entire diary of the 1976-77 New York art season, but I suspect that "fair use" doesn't quite cover eleven pages of text and photographs. It's worth a trip to your nearest research library to read, though: it's filled with enough anecdotes and mysteries to launch a thousand blog posts. Above, I've put up my favorite section, a tiny excerpt from October and November 1976, which includes Australian art critic Robert Hughes, collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, artist Carl Andre, museum director Pontus Hulten, and more.

Free Beer at X, Animals and Artists, Maya Lin, etc. [Collected]

Tom Marioni, FREE BEER (The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art), 1970-79. Photo: Steve Rhodes

"With more than one thousand beer cans to be consumed in the course of one evening, the performance creates an instant community: as beer cans are emptied, Martin Soto Climent will alter them with a slight crush and places them on the floor in a formation."

- Press release for Martin Soto Climent's performance at X.

• Visitors to the Martin Soto Climent's performance on June 23 will consume many beers, reminding us a bit of Tom Marioni's FREE BEER... piece shown at SFMOMA recently.
• Winkleman suggests that people interested in art are also curious about animals, referencing the charming art collectors Herb & Dorothy Vogel, who are in a new film.
• "At Storm King I'm working with the idea of what happens when those waves go above your head." - Maya Lin, interviewed by Time critic Richard Lacayo. She's working on a video for Times Square.
• "Is négritude viable or historically spent?" Voice critic Martha Schwendener at Exit Art's Négritude. [via MAN]
• "The oldest art show in the world." [via Amy Goodwin]
• I want to look at John Wesley paintings all day long.