Introduction

I began writing art criticism to get attention for my artist friends' work. It surprised me that the established press wasn't as attentive to these artists as I thought they should be. At the time, the mid-80s, when the gallery scene was in a frenzy of merchandising—where hype to sell product was supplanting attention to the work—I set out on a mini-crusade to focus attention on the qualities of the work itself. I was interested in reminding the public, attentive to the arts, that beyond the allure and distractions of the business end there was work being produced that deserved attention for values other than its commercial success.
   I found most writing about art to be boring. I was determined to bring some of the poet's thrill with words to this trade journalism. As a poet, I found having something particular to describe a useful containment: I could get whacky with language to add emphasis, but the act of reporting kept me tethered to the planet.
   A long precedence of poets and artists writing about culture encouraged me, particularly Edwin Denby's dance criticism and Fairfield Porter's art criticism. I'd found in their writing a propulsive joy at what they were viewing, an engagement and direct response that more often than not participated in that spiritual process by which the ballet or art object had been fabricated.
   The last decade, which is the approximate time span of this book, seems to have gone by quickly. The Reagan/Bush era, for all its wish to control individual expression, necessitated a backlash of artists and expressive activists whose work arose from the need to shout out against the repressive measures of the administration's policing. Many artists "came to voice" as a direct reaction to not feeling included in the strategies the Republicans desired to see enacted into laws. In the era's totalitarian need for sameness, many people came to understand that their differences to those administrative standards need not and should not be judged.
   The explosive phenomena of the east village scene in the mid-1980s saw the instant appearance of 60–70 galleries into what had been for a century an immigrant and bohemian neighborhood of affordable rents. As the Republican presidents encouraged greed and forced money worship on a population distracted from its spirit, prices for artwork soared to values as phony and inflated as the national economy. This neighborhood was ravaged by that greed as collectors and young entrepreneurs saw the art scene as a way to finance their pleasures. As the galleries moved into storefronts and the limos began arriving, real estate speculators descended like vampires to make their profits. Soon rents were doubling and tripling.
   The market arose as a parallel to the existing gallery scene but was run by younger people so seemed a lot looser and less cutthroat than their uptown and Soho models. Even though some were in it for the allure of big profits (the peak of all this fervency being a Van Gogh selling for 67 million, which turned out to be a ridiculously inflated and rather bogus deal), and the possibility of lavishness was a seduction, a lot of people were brought together in the political bleakness of the times and given refuge in the fantasy of being an artist or of being around them. Of course a lot of mediocre art began to fill the instant demand for product. Eventually, polluted by too much, the scene crumbled. A few galleries survived to move to Soho. Most closed. It was a fun time if a bit forced on us by our despairing of participating in society.
   In making my rounds for ARTS magazine, mostly 57th Street galleries, I covered a lot of terrific established artists showing at the most established galleries—Herstand, Washburn, Zabriskie: and also the more adventurous Grace Borgenicht and Jack Tilton. For COVER magazine I mostly stayed in the neighborhood, covering the "downtown" scene.
   I began writing criticism with an amateur's enthusiasm. I wished to share the excitement I felt at viewing and thinking about art. I wanted to alert a broader audience than my friends. As my critical examination has hopefully deepened, I've always tried to retain that glow.
   It's my hope that this collection's range and mix of boundaries — the established with the emerging, the safe object of adoration with the risky enticement to transcend staidness—will open the reader to venturing beyond their normal focus.
   Many of the pieces in this collection appear here in revised form from how they appeared originally. Several appear in print for the first time.

[Acknowledgments]