Gregory Battcock
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Gregory Battcock (1937-1980) was an American art historian, art critic, and painter from New York City who wrote a series of Dutton paperbacks that anthologized critical writings on new art tendencies in contemporary art, such as Minimalism, Conceptual Art[1] and Super Realism.[2] His first anthology, The New Art, was published in 1966 and revised in 1973.[3] Idea Art: A Critical Anthology, about conceptual art, was his most impactful book.[4]
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.
He wrote frequently for the art magazines Art & Artists and Domus.[5] Battcock taught fine art at William Paterson College [6] 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.[2] He appeared in the Andy Warhol films Eating Too Fast, Horse, and Batman Dracula.
Battcock was murdered in Puerto Rico on December 25, 1980.[5][7]
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
- 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]- ^ Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” October 55 (Winter 1990): 105–43
- ^ a b [1] 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
- ^ a b [2] 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.
- ^ "Police have no clues in slaying of critic - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
External links
[edit]- [3] Gregory Battcock papers, 1952-circa 1980