A final (I think) reaction to the Artforum book: while there’s a lot of interesting stuff in it and it clearly is the product of dedicated labor, the organization stinks. Three consecutive chronological sections is ok, if not inspired, but the conceit of subdividing these into “Isms” (discussion of events or themes that motivated or tied the participants together) and “Schisms” (the same for what drove them in opposition or apart) simply does not work. It inevitably means that one moves along more or less chronologically for a period of five years or so, getting different takes – and then starts a new section going over the same period of time with another set of statements from mostly the same people. About the same events, even – as one person notes early on, they had some serious differences with each other right from the start and these only got worse. So even at the beginning, the Ism/Schism format means treating the same disputes repetitively and in a disjointed manner, as they surface in each section; by the last chapter, Newman has to acknowledge that pretty much everything covered in the two repeating sections is identical. She’s simply saved most of the more interesting accounts – those in which one of those involved rips someone else a new one – for the second pass round. It’s a tiresome and unnecessary structure.
That aside, as much as I admire the guy, it’s hard to overstate how big a jerk Michael Fried comes across as being. Not that Rosalind Krauss or Annette Michelson are much better, but still. Phil Leider seems to be the one that Newman exposes the most in her footnotes, showing how what he’s saying contradicts what he said or did in the past. I was surprised at how nasty he comes across, but part of that, I think, is simply his being an ambitious (and great) editor. A certain ruthlessness was required. The others might claim a similar defense, but I’m not sure it applies as well to them.
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