High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975

by Katy Siegel (Photographer)

In the late 1960s, the New York art world was, famously, an exhilarating place to be. New forms, including performance and video art, were making their debuts, and sculpture was developing in startling ways. In the midst of it all, experimental abstract painting was pressing art's most iconic medium to its limits and beyond. High Times, Hard Times fills a gap in coverage of this moment in history, recapturing its liveliness and urgency with more than 42 key pieces by 38 artists who were living and working in New York at the time. Many of those featured artists have contributed personal statements reflecting on the work, its meaning and the social scene that surrounded it, including Lynda Benglis, Mel Bochner, Roy Colmer, Mary Corse, David Diao and Peter Young, Guy Goodwin, Harmony Hammond, Mary Heilmann, Cesar Paternosto, Howardena Pindell, Dorothea Rockburne, Carolee Schneemann, Alan Shields, Joan Snyder, Franz Erhard Walther and Jack Whitten, as well as one curator and one critic, Marcia Tucker and Robert Pincus-Witten. The critic Katy Siegel and the painter David Reed have written essays tha focus, respectively, on the work's explosive artistic and political context, and the experience of being a young painter living in New York during these years. Additional pieces by Dawoud Bey and Anna Chave focus on race and gender in that milieu. Color illustrations of every featured work, along with supplementary historic photographs from the period, ephemera, biographies, a timeline and a bibliography round out a beautiful, much-needed book, a complete reference on a crucial era.

Genres: Art

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2006

Reviews

[Peter Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Omniscient

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing show, I went to the show wanting to organize a show for Sideshow Gallery gathering cards for artists but only got to Joe Oversteet's studio and home. Ronnie Landfield wanted a Lyrical Abstraction show, so no go at Sideshow, but very important and inspiring for people of all kinds and ages to see. The book is well written by Katy Siegal, Dawoud Bay, and Anna C. Chave. I must read it again sometime but have a pile of books by my bed as it is. A must for all abstract painters, everywhere. Love David Diao's process piece, just wrote a review of Forrest Meyers' show with Jim Clark for Whitehot magazine online, and all the blacks and women of course, and so many I had only seen researching old Art in Americas. I have a Peter Young book now, but have loved Ron Gorchov so long and talked about him at one of David Cohen's panel as a mystery thinker rather than a puzzle thinker when Joe Fyfe said his show at Nicholas Robinson was "phoned in." David Cohen said maybe you should be up here! When I saw the show at Nicholas robinson I befriended the gallerist asking what she went to school for and she said architecture and we talked so long she gave me the catalogue to the show.

Martin Bromirski, this is dedicated to you because I heard about the show on your blog before it ever came up to NYC>

[S.E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This retrospective of largely overlooked artists from the late '60's and early '70's is an amazing curatorial effort on the part of David Reed and Katy Siegel. The artists featured were pioneers in the use of new painting technologies and the affect of politics on their work is examined.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this book/exhibition catalog is rife with typographical errors,has a distracting layout, and occasional bouts with excessive self-congratulation --
it attempts to group together disparate painters and process artists and to fill in critical gaps in the timeline of painting.