Gregory Battcock
Gregory Battcock (1937-1980) was an American art historian, art critic, and painter from New York City[1] who wrote a series of Dutton paperbacks that anthologized critical writings on new art tendencies in contemporary art, such as Minimalism, Conceptual Art,[2] Video Art,[3]and Super Realism.[4] His first anthology, The New Art, was published in 1966 and revised in 1973.[5] Idea Art: A Critical Anthology, about conceptual art, was his most impactful book.[6]
Life and career
[edit]Battcock attended Michigan State University, the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, and Hunter College. He earned his Ph.D. from New York University in 1978 with a dissertation titled Constructivism and Minimal Art: Some Aesthetic, Theoretical and Critical Correlations.[7]
He wrote frequently for the art magazines Art & Artists and Domus.[8] Battcock taught fine art at William Paterson College [9] and was art critic for the New York Free Press. In the late 1960s and early-’70s, Battcock contributed columns on art and life to tabloids such as Gay and the New York Review of Sex.
He was editor-in-chief of Arts Magazine (1973-1975). In 1977 he co-published the tabloid Trylon & Perisphere with Ron Whyte that included satiricart criticism and soft-core eroticism.[4] He appeared in the Andy Warhol films Eating Too Fast, Horse, and Batman Dracula.[10]
Battcock was murdered in Puerto Rico on December 25, 1980.[8][11][12]
Books
[edit]- Idea Art: A Critical Anthology
- Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology
- The New Art: A Critical Anthology
- The New American Cinema. A Critical Anthology
- Breaking the Sound Barrier: A Critical Anthology of the New Music
- The Art of Performance: A Critical Anthology (edited with Robert Nickas)
- New Artists Video
- Super Realism
- Why Art: Casual Notes on the Aesthetics of the Immediate Past
- New Ideas in Art Education
See also
[edit]Notes and references
[edit]- ^ Young, Vernon, I’ve Been Reading These Film Critics, Hudson Review 21 (Summer, 1968) pp. 337-344
- ^ Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions, October 55 (Winter 1990) pp. 105–43
- ^ [1] Gregory Battcock by Douglas Davis at Artforum April 1981 VOL. 19, NO.8
- ^ a b [2] TRANSFORMER: GREGORY BATTCOCK By David Joselit at Artforum
- ^ David Weinberg, Blood of a Critic: Gregory Battcock’s Rise to Stardom and Fall from Grace, Soho News, October 13, 1981
- ^ The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 33, Issue 1, Autumn 1974, Pages 109–111, https://doi.org/10.2307/42896, 01 September 1974
- ^ Crimp, Douglas, Yvonne Rainer, Muciz Lover, Grey Room no. 22 (Winter, 2006) pp. 48-67
- ^ a b [3] Gregory Battcock papers, 1952-circa 1980
- ^ Russell, John (January 16, 1981). "ART PEOPLE; The ride-by subway mural". New York Times. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
- ^ Henry, Garritt. “Whole Picture.” Art International’' #15 (December 1971) p. 89
- ^ "Police have no clues in slaying of critic - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
- ^ Russell, John, Art People, New York Times January 16, 1981, p. 20
External links
[edit]- [4] Gregory Battcock papers, 1952-circa 1980
