When I painted this diamond it was a sign that I was slipping sliding away. The first time I flipped I sprinkled this diamond with marijuana. What a fucking mistake, though it looked nice, it was a homage to Ad. Reinhardt one of my art heroes. He was so intense those black paintings of his drove me and ordinary citizens bonkers. His art comics collage montage works on paper often published in art magazines in the late 1950's and later in ARTFORUM and ArtNews . About the odd view he had of the art world. So when I lost my mind in the spring of 1974 the person most on my mind was Ad. Reinhardt who by then had become a moral authority in the visual arts for me a sort of rabbi or Iman type person. But what made me mad? It could have been the DNA from my Mom who was schizophrenic or the violent homelive. My father was as big a drunk as Jackson Pollock. And meaner. My mother was not well and never really got well, mental illness can be milder and it can recede but it follows you on life's merrry way
SO i'm looking in the Strib for the art listings and I see my name is absent but the name of the show Poison & Candy is listed as if peeps would know that was me? I think it's a typo the shows are supposed to only take 3 lines? Like a want ad. But I'm the product here I'm the Brand Name. Poison & Candy the name of the show (Walker wanted a title so I gave them a selection and they choose Poison & Candy from my list) so now who would come to that if my name was not attached? Part of me says fix it and part of me remembers the depth of Mary Abbe's thick headedness more stubborn than a man!! How has my work engaged people? In retinal optical terms and in aesthetic philosophical terms. I saw a fluff piece Abbe wrote on the Walker which really was distressing it seemed to suggest the Walker had been "Too Intellectual" and now they were better more normative more middle of the road, dumber, yes Abbe was anti-intellectual representing the art public who want less thinking at the Walker! Strib headline says- WALKER TOO THINKY! Now she really didn't she my show she was doing a pre-show profile but I feel like was profoundly out of touch with my work, she indeed I suspect doesn't know what I'm doing. A good friend of mine in New York thinks Mary Abbe hurt the Walker and the local art scene with her small mindness her incompetence and her pettiness. For me it's the facts of life that the scene has out grown her provincial limitations. She's the poison here the banality she dishes out about profound things and is making the art suffer as it always does without a decent critique. The TC needs an art critic who has some fucking credibility, everything hinges on better criticism. Maybe we should put our poets to the task, or our unemployed philosophy fellows or just have some auditions . How about someone younger ? Am I making too much of too little?
The diamond painting above Untitled (bottlecaps) 1975 6 feet square acrylic and bottle caps on canvas is currently on the wall at the Walker Art Center in Poison & Candy Until May 6 Frankie Gaard's Thinky Art