On the occasion of Pace’s much-anticipated “Happenings” show, Rachel Wolff visited with Lucas Samaras in his 62nd-floor studio in Midtown. [NYMag]
“What Happened at Those Happeningss?” Carol Kino speaks with Mr. Samaras and a handful of others involved in the Happenings scene. Said Claes Oldenburg: “At first almost everybody there was someone that you could recognize in the art scene. Then as the performances got more publicity, there came strangers. There was even something called a ‘thrill club,’ organized on Long Island to bring people in for exciting weekends in New York. They would arrive in limos. But they were mystified and mostly disappointed. As time went on, the audience became less and less interesting to me. I couldn’t really reach them.” [NYT]
Here’s the story of an interesting performance art piece, told through the lens of “taxpayer outrage.” [The Daily Mail]
The British really know how to do art outrages right. From the archives, here’s a relatively recent article by Martin Bailey on the controversy over Tate’s acquisition of a Carl Andre brick piece in 1976. The Sunday Times‘ headline: “The Tate Drops a Costly Brick.” [The Art Newspaper]
Speaking of tabloid fare, Mark Hudson speaks with a cousin of Lucian Freud, who explains how she fell out with the painter some 20 years ago, after he made an offensive remark on the occasion of her mother’s death.”[I]n this world genius is excused everything, and in my opinion and the opinion of a great many others Lucian was a genius,” she said. [The Telegraph]
David Kamp profiles Freud posthumously, speaking with those who sat with him for portraits. [Vanity Fair]
The Times calls Björk’s latest offering in Queens “moving to see and also sensible.” [NYT]
A design has been picked for a New York AIDS memorial park in Greenwich Village. [ArtDaily]
