Lucy Lippard’s Life on the Frontlines of Art

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hrag Vartanian (00:25):
Hey, doggy. Hello. How are you?

Lucy Lippard (00:29):
Hi. She's she's just excited. This house is full
of dogs.

That was Lucy Lippard, one of the voices who's
truly defined contemporary artcriticism. And as you can see
here, these are some of the manydozens of books, monographs, and
anthologies she's contributed.Everything from surrealism to
feminist art to land art andeverything in between. Her book
on Eva Hesse, in particular, wasvery influential because it was

(01:01):
one of the first to combinebiography, as well as criticism,
art history, and some personalinsights, helping redefine what
a book about an artist could andshould be. She invited us to her
home in Galisteo, New Mexico,where I had the pleasure of
recording this podcast.
Now picture it. It is a verydry, windy plain just at the

(01:25):
foot of the mountains in NewMexico. It's a small town, and I
went and as you heard, knockedon her door. She was kind enough
to let us in and open up abouther own experiences and loves of
art, writing, and the world. Inorder to get a fuller picture of
Lucy's world and work, we alsoare speaking to 2 other

(01:46):
brilliant women.
First of all, Catherine Morris,the senior curator at the
Sackler Center For Feminist Artat the Brooklyn Museum. Back in
2012, she curated Materializing6 Years, Lucy Lippard and the
Emergence of Conceptual Art,which is based on this book
right here. And then Susan b, apainter, book artist, and editor

(02:09):
who is part of the same 19seventies art world where Lucy
was an emerging and prominentfigure. My name is Horag
Bartanyan, the editor in chiefand cofounder of Hyperallergic.
We have a lot to get to, solet's get back to the
conversation.
So I'm here at Galisteo, thesmall I mean, it's a village. Is

(02:33):
it a town?

It's a village. It's 250 people.

250 people. And you've lived here now for 30
years?

Almost 30 years. Yeah.

30 years. Now how did you find this place?

Oh, feminists. Like, Judy Chicago, knew about
it, and and her now husband wasworking for Eggs Martin and
lived here and was building hisown house here. And then Harmony
Hammond moved here, and she wasvery close to me because of the
heresies and everything. And Iwas staying with her, and I
looked across the creek, andthere was a sign that this strip

(03:07):
was being sold off. So I andthen my mother died, so I had
some money for the first time inmy life and and bought it and
built this little house.

What was it that ignited your imagination?

Well, Galvestdale. I remember walking the first I
was hiking. There's a bigpetroglyph site further down the
road, and I was hiking there.And I walked across the bridge,
and I thought this this place isforeign. I mean, I it was I I
liked it, but it was foreign.
And, and I ended up by livinghere. So at first, it's so quiet
here when I was first livinghere. It's changed quite a lot.

So so there is this image of 19 seventies
contemporary art world in NewYork being very political.

Well, we were much more political. I was I was an
activist in the seventies and Iall my friends were. So, you
know, I we I would tell peoplewhen I moved down here, I'd say
that I I'm getting away fromart, and my artist friends would
look pissed. So, you know, sothey would and, so I started I I
was actually getting away fromthe art world, and clearly, I

(04:05):
never succeeded in getting awayfrom art.

But Here I am.

Yeah. Right. Well, art, it it turned out yeah. You
know, I wanted to write fiction.When I graduated from college,
I've gotten a couple fictionprizes and had stories published
and stuff and and I thought,well, I'm a hot shit and I'm,
you know, I'm gonna do that.
And I'm really glad that that Iwas really bad at writing the
kind of fiction anybody wouldwanna publish and and, and I'm

(04:31):
glad I and I it was alreadyspending a lot of time on art,
and and, I'm glad I ended upwriting about art because
everything I get interested in,I can look around and there's
some artists who are interestedin it too. And and so so there's
something to talk about andwrite about.

So you did mention once talking about our
criticism being a form offiction.

I think you mentioned that once.

I think I think somewhere that I I remember
reading That

was clever.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?
Like, how true is that for youstill?

I I don't I don't know what I was really I mean, I
guess everything is fiction onone level or another, especially
in these days.

Right.

But one thing that interested me about writing
about art when I realized thatwas what I was gonna end up by
doing, was that it's almostimpossible to write about art. I
mean, I like that. I've alwaysbeen interested in words and
images, and and there isn't anyreal way of of talking about art
unless you see it. And so thatwas challenging, and and I so I

(05:28):
have always listened to artists,which was, you know, not done in
the late fifties when I came toNew York. I mean, you weren't
ever supposed to use the word I.
God forbid. And you certainlyweren't. I mean, Dori Ashton was
fired from the times because sheknew, in the biblical sense, new
artists. She was too close toartists, married to one and so

(05:48):
on, and so was I. And I I washappy to be that was where I
learned everything I know aboutart was artists.

Catherine Morris (05:59):
I think that Lucy would say it all started
with the artists, plain andsimple. She has said to me that,
you know, she'd learned fromartists, from being in studios,
from being at dinners, fromdrinking and hanging out. And I
think that's still true. I dobelieve that the emergence of
the conceptual movement in thesixties seventies is one of the

(06:20):
most important art historicalmoments of the 20th century and
one that we're still grapplingwith.

My name is

Katharine Morris. I'm the senior curator
of the Sackler Center ForFeminist Art at the Brooklyn
Museum.

And so the topic, of course, is Lucy
Lapard, who is somebody whoyou've worked with, for an
exhibition you organized roughly10 years ago now. So can you
tell us a little bit about like,first of all, describe Lucie
Lippard for someone who may notknow who she is and what role
she plays in the art community,in art criticism, in art and

(06:51):
museums, and why you felt sointerested in her work?

Lucy is, in my mind, in the generation that I
grew up in, an integral part ofthe art world, an integral part
of the kind of people who madean intellectual framing of
conceptual art and feminism thatI learned and grew up with and
believed in fully and still do.And she is a person who
fascinated me because she isabsolutely a part of the art

(07:19):
world, but she's also a personthat I think kind of holds
herself at a bit as a reservefrom that world. I think that
that becomes part of a criticaldistance. I also think it's a
personality and I think that itinforms the way that she takes
up the work that she does inrelationship particularly to
conceptual art, and the artistswho were a part of her circle at

(07:40):
that time.

My parents loved art and they went to not
contemporary galleries thatmuch, but they went to museums
and and they both painted,amateur watercolor painting. And
and actually both were not bad,I mean, you know, for local
things. And when I startedwriting about art in my sort of
formalist period, daddy said,well, he said, you know, and I I

(08:02):
don't really understand whatyou're talking about a lot of
the time. And and I thought,here's an intelligent person who
is well educated and likes art,and he doesn't understand what
I'm talking about. This is notgood.
And so I tried to clean up myact a little. I mean, it never
fully worked because to be inthe art world, you have to do
some of that stuff. But but,I've I've managed to, you know,

(08:25):
say what I wanted to say and getaway with it on some levels.

I guess, like, because I mean, there's there's
still this kind of concept, andI think it's something
propagated by maybe academicprograms. Yeah. You know, that
that this kind of super jargony,slogany language.

Oh, theory. I mean, I I I it's probably just
because I'm too lazy to dealwith theory, but I've always
called theory ideas withhardening of the arteries

Right.

Because and I've never been an academic, and none
of them liked me, and that'sfine. Hilton Kramer once said,
Lucy Lippard was was lookinglike a a really good art
historian until she and I I'llnever forget this quote. Until
she fell prey to the radicalwhirlwind. And, you know, and I
did I'm proud of it and so on.

Susan Bee (09:11):
You know, you do nobody reads Hilton Kramer
anymore. I mean, but at thetime, he was the most important
art critic in New York. My nameis Susan b, and I'm an artist
who lives in Brooklyn. And I'vebeen a member of AIR, which is
the first feminist art co op forwomen that started in 1972. The

(09:33):
reason I'm so excited abouttalking about Lucy Lippert is
that when I was in graduateschool at Hunter in the
seventies, like, 70 5 to 77, itwas all male art teachers.
This was graduate school. Right?There wasn't a woman to be found
except the art historydepartment, but certainly not
teaching studio art. And shebecame this very important icon

(09:57):
to us at the time, even goingback to the sixties, because
she's somebody who came out ofthe minimalist movement, and she
understood conceptual art andartist books and all of these
things that were very important,performance art, that were very
important in the sixtiesseventies. But she actually made

(10:18):
the move out of, just supportingmale artists, which is pretty
much all that was happening atthe time, to supporting women
artists and writing about themand to centering feminist art,
which was a very chancy thing atthe time.
When AIR started in 1972, it wasthe first women's gallery. And

(10:39):
the idea of having women gettingtogether and doing a gallery was
considered such a bad idea, youknow, by the art world that she
was very supportive of of theseearly feminist artists and also
very involved with politics andwith artist books. So at the

(11:00):
time, she was somebody reallycrucial. Like, I would go to see
her talk, and I would feelreally inspired by her. Also,
because she had a art historybackground, she was really well
known as an art critic and wellknown also for supporting male
minimalist artists, maleconceptual artists.

(11:23):
So it wasn't that she was, justcoming out of nowhere. As as an
art historian, she already hadall the respect, but the fact
that she was willing to putherself out and support women,
made it very important for ourtime period that back then. And,
of course, she continues to age87 now. So she's really been an

(11:47):
icon for a very long time. Youknow, I have to think also that
the Guerrilla Girls washappening at that time.
All these people were picketing,you know, museums. You had
Harlem on My Mind, which had noblack artists in it. I mean,
there was crazy stuff like thatgoing on that now it's almost

(12:08):
you can't really, think back andrealize how segregated the world
art world was in terms ofartists, women artists, artists
of color, gay artists. I mean,whatever it was, there was
people didn't talk about certainthings. People never brought up
certain things.

(12:29):
And, I guess it's hard toreconstruct that era because
everything was just sort ofcoming into being. She was less
judgmental, I would say, andmore open to what was happening.
So she, you know, she could lookshe could talk to somebody like
Anna Mangietta or MarybethEdelson, people who are doing

(12:49):
performance work using theirbodies in ways that were
considered, you know, kind ofconsidered wrong at the time,
you know, putting themselves intheir work. All these things
that were kind of percolating,and she was on the ground with
it. You know?
In other words, she wasn't shedidn't divorce herself from the

(13:10):
art world. I mean, she, youknow, was involved with the
minimalist. She was involvedwith conceptualists. She's
involved with the feminist, sothe political people. What she
probably wasn't involved with isthe mainstream work world at the
time, but she made herself partof the scene at the time with
more experimental writers, withmore experimental performers,

(13:35):
with people starting out, andthat gave the whole scene much
more credence because she couldwrite and she could put it
forward in a way that was madesense to the outside world, I
think, because, you know, shewas a trained art historian.
She wasn't coming out ofcompletely out of left field

(13:58):
when she had she was out of leftfield for sure, but I mean, she
was a leftist for sure. But shewas able to really penetrate
these mainstream worlds, Ithink, in a very interesting
way, which you see now withcertain critics, you know, in
hyperallergic and other placeswhere you're able to make a

(14:20):
difference by putting forwardcertain work or, you know,
talking about, you know, Harlemin a different way than it was
talked of at the time. I mean, Isaw that original Harlem show.
You know, it was just photos ofHarlem. I mean, I was going to
high school in Harlem.
This was a you know, what was Ilooking at? You you might as
well just get on the bus and goto Harlem. You know? There was

(14:44):
really no point to it.

So that hasn't changed again.

Yeah. What the hell? It will You

see? What are we doing?

Yeah. You're doing it now. I'm I'm on the fringes.

But do you know what I mean?

It's all your fault. Oh, god.

You're probably I

mean, the next generation. I I would love to
hear what your generation, whatyou think your generation did to

Yeah.

Change any of this.

Well, I mean, I think my generation when I was
going to school was in thenineties. Mhmm. And I think we
sort of responding to themulticulturalism, which you've
written about extensively, andwe were trying to sort of
reconsider the orthodoxies.Right? Yeah.
And I think we did a good job interms of at least, like,
realizing that there isn't thisone, this only modernist notion
of Sure. Art history. Yep. Butthe problem was we were never,

(15:29):
like, the market also bloomed atthe same time, and the reality
was that so much of what we'veconsidered the art system for so
long has been sort of dictatedand funded by the commercial
market. Well, we're

in a capitalist society. Surprise, surprise.

I mean But at the same time, it's like, I
think that's why Hyperallergicwas created partly was because
we were like, okay, well, we'renot interested in that. So our
funders tend to be we havemembership, we have, you know,
art schools, we have museums, wehave foundations, all these
types of things. So it's likeit's not galleries are not the
focus.

Yeah, right.

But unfortunately, you know, this
corporate tendency in the artworld, I think, really took away
some of the DIY stuff or atleast then monetized it.

Does that make sense? I mean, yeah. That's what
I discovered in the late fiftiesand early sixties. Before the
sixties got going, I wasbeginning to suspect, you know,
that Right. That, you thinkyou're free in the art world and
so and then you realize there'sa wall right over there and it's
capitalism.
I mean, you know, and there's

That's right.

And there's how to, you know and you have to
make a living. My first book wason prints and drawings of Philip
Evergood.

Right.

Because I read that. Yeah. And I discovered
another art world completelythat I'd never even known
existed, Raphael Sawyer andExactly. Evergood's old pals.
And it was a perfect book for mebecause, you know, Evergood
stayed a communist long after heshould have not been a
communist.
But anyway

I'm so glad you brought this up because I was
gonna ask you about that becauseit seemed really out of the
ordinary considering thetrajectory you were on, at least
initially, it seemed like.

The Evergood book. Yeah. It was my first book. I
was I would've I mean, I waswriting for money, such as it
was.

Right. But but did you do you really credit
that with opening your mind upto this different narratives? Or
how do you

Well, no. No. Not not to different narratives so
much. Much. I knew about I mean,I was well educated about art.

But by the early sixties, that's that's

that's what a cadre of

Got it.

You know, artists who who had their own art world.
I mean, they had their owngalleries. They had their own
collectors. And and when Iwandered in, you know, I
thought, oh, it's just like ourart world. I mean, you know
Right.
Like this other one over here,and then, of course, there are
lots of those.

So now I wanna go to the question of image and
text. Do you know? Becausethat's actually been one of the
central ideas that draws my lifeand work.

Yeah. What interested me about image and
text was that, was partly that Iwanted to be a writer, but I was
interested in art. And then Iknew there was this gap of
perception and and then ofwords. And then conceptual art
happened, and that that wasreally a huge opening up for me.

So what was it like creating an art exhibit for
someone who isn't necessarily anartist? Right? I mean, she she
does she does sort of fallbetween categories in many ways.
But what what was that like?

That was the fun of it. There were so many
parts of that exhibition thatVincent and I had so many
thoughts about. And what'sinteresting to me about that
show and the thing that I thinksurprised people, as a curator
of a Center For Feminist Art,one would think I would do an
exhibition on Lucy's feministwriting. But it was really
important to me and to Vincentto do this work starting with
conceptual art because Lucy hastalked about sort of moving away

(18:44):
from conceptual art and intofeminist art because she felt
like conceptual art wasn'tpolitical enough. She got to the
point in life where she reallywanted to be actively political.
And I think now, then, 10 yearsago, 40 years later, whatever it
was, we saw the politics in thatconceptual practice that didn't

(19:05):
feel as vital to her at thetime. But so for me to make the
clear link between howconceptual practice that Lucy
was interested in, not allconceptual practices, was very
much linked to a politics thatshe was a part of and that
feminism grows from. I thinkthere's also a way in which the
history of conceptual art andthe history of feminist art are
really inextricably linked.

So now how would you like looking back at Lucy's,
you talk about the politics andand sort of like she was a
little frustrated with thepolitics of conceptualism. Now,
in retrospect, what were some ofthose radical things that she
may have not seen at first?

You know, the number shows that Lucy did,
which she's so famous for doing.The last one was circa 75100,
which was the first all womenand arguably the first feminist
show she did. Not arguably, itis. And, that's where we ended
our exhibition and that's whereshe talks about having kind of
made this conscious decision toturn her attention to this

(20:04):
sociopolitical movement that wasgrounded in conceptualism, but
had a more overt politicaldrive.

How would you describe the number shows for
those who are listening and maynot know what those are?

The number show was another kind of idea
that Lucy had for how todemocratize exhibitions. She
called them her suitcaseexhibitions as well. She asked
artists she invited artists tosubmit ideas for works of art,
conceptual works of art, to beincluded in exhibition on 3 by 5
cards. She would then take those3 by 5 cards and she would go to

(20:39):
the sites and produce the worksas they were described on these
3 by 5 cards and she did 3different versions of it, some
of which she considers moresuccessful than other And she
became it was a way to kind ofpass the baton. She could take
these cards and she could make ashow, she could pass them on to
somebody else to do it, anartist could offer an idea that

(21:00):
then in reality becomes, almosta a a collective action.
So the names of the shows werebased on the population numbers
of the cities where they wereheld. And you can still find in
rare bookshops today, the thecards became the catalog for the
show. So flipping through the 3by 5 cards again is Lucy's

(21:20):
variation and idea of a catalog.Again, as she put it, you could
put them in any kind of orderyou like. You can throw away the
ones you don't like.
You know, it is another, sort ofconceptual activity that becomes
part of the collective process.

I collaborated with artists and and I was, you
know, wrote things but it waspart of the art and since they
were doing text too, it didn'tmake me. And people said, oh,
Lucy wants to be an artist and Inever wanted to be an artist. I
always was a writer but I couldcollaborate with artists. I
could do whatever the hell Iwanted. When I did the what
people call now the card catalogshows or the number shows in

(21:58):
1969, 70, Peter Plagens wroteabout it in Artforum or
someplace and said Lucy wants tobe an artist.
You know? This she's really theartist of all this stuff. And I
was that was annoyed hell out ofme. But anyway, that doesn't
have anything to do with imageand text. But then No.

I mean, I think it does. I mean, I think part of
this one of the reasons I'minterested in this topic is
because there's this such thisstrange gatekeeping around art
writers and and sort of whatwe're allowed to do and what
we're not allowed to do, butthere isn't the same rules with
artists.

No. Artists are the the free spirits and

They can write things and they can, you know,
and and no one ever says theystop doing it.

Things that much. I mean, you know, they're Well,

Donald Judd did.

Oh, yeah. No. But starting around in the sixties.
Right. In Smithson and so forthand so on.
But that's that Historically

historically in the academies, people did write.
The artists in the academieswrote a little bit, Joshua
Reynolds

or But they didn't write about other people's work
that much, did they?

Not that much.

But then so conceptual art, I did things
called I tried to make picturesinto words in a series of things
called photo dialogues orsomething. And I tried to do a
paragraph of text and then apicture and then pick up from
the picture the next paragraph.I mean it sounded like a good
idea, but it never reallyworked. I don't think people

(23:11):
ever they just looked at thepicture and went on to the text
and or something. Or just lookedat the pictures and never looked
at the text or whatever.
So Or

maybe they read it differently now Yeah. When
they did that. Just like goodart, sometimes good art writing
takes some time to seep in.

Yeah. I mean, I'm just really I don't see myself
as a genius art writer. I seemyself as sort of a hack. I
mean, you know, like, frankly.Yeah.
I mean, I've made a living atthis. I mean, somebody I did a
talk at the New School aboutcriticism a few years ago and
one of the questions was what doyou what do you do about
writer's block? And I said Idon't. This is how I make my
living. I don't get blocked.

(23:45):
I mean you know, I mean I'veI've written some stupid things
and some bad things and soforth, but but I I write to her
like Absolutely. Yeah. And I'msure you do and everybody most
people do. I mean, it's but Ithink art writers don't get
writer's block because we're notrespected enough to have
writer's block. I mean I

mean, I see

we're not creative enough

I think part of the reason that Lucy feels
like a bit of a enigma isbecause, you know, she didn't
think of herself as a critic.She thought of herself as a
novelist or a writer. And so Ithink that that contributes to
the way she positioned herselfin the world because she didn't
define herself by those termsthat most people seem to want

(24:25):
to, which obviously also definesall of her work, including the
book 6 years, which, my greatcolleague Vincent Bonan and I
did an exhibition on.

Susan Bee (24:34):
She also was a writer. I should say that she
wrote some very good fiction,which she never really pursued.
But, in the experimental writingworld, she was also known. So, I
mean, on all of those levels, Ithink her importance is very,
it's almost underrated, I think,because I don't in a way, I

(24:56):
don't think people now reallyknow her work.

So why do you think, like, with artists,
there's often this idea of,like, they can create different
bodies of work, but with artwriters, I feel like there's
less flexibility in people'simagination about what we do.
Why? Why do you think that is?

I have no idea. I mean, I've just always felt like
I could be as flexible as Iwanted because I'm a freelancer.
I mean, you know, it's I don'thave any kind of never had a
boss, but,

it was So let's talk about that part. It's
because I know that you you, youoften joke that you have a
problem with authority.

I'm an only child. Maybe that's it.

But at the end of the day, as a freelancer, you
do and you don't have freedom.Right? Because you still have to
appeal to a certain, like, youknow, publication Yeah.

You want people to have you write again. Yes.
Exactly. Yeah.

So so I I wonder how you navigated that.

I was never very aware of navigating anything.
I've I've always had a lot ofenergy. I don't anymore, but I
used to have a lot. And I justwent ahead and did what I wanted
to do. And if somebody didn'tlike it, I mean, there were
plenty of projects that didn'thappen and grants I didn't get.
And I stopped applying forgrants at one point because it
just seemed like, why bother? Iremember we used to have a

(26:08):
discussion around in the earlyeighties about whether activist
artists should be trying to getinto museums or in galleries and
so on. And a lot of people justsaid, you know, we get co opted
if we go in there. We have tostay on our own and stay in the
co opted galleries and or nogallery at all and so on. And
then Leon Golub, who wascertainly an admirable activist,

(26:30):
said, no.
We we belong in the museums too,and our art is important. And
these messages that we have areimportant. And I, you know, I
was totally convinced once hedid that. You know? I still
prefer the margins for myself,but but artists I mean, like, I
have artist friends who say,well, you're so lucky.
You can not make much money andyou can live. I mean, it's true.

(26:52):
They they have to buy materials.I mean, painters, I'm thinking.

Sure. I get it. And And sculptors. Definitely.

Sculptors, definitely. And and going out
and getting things out of thegutter doesn't work for
everybody.

So now getting back to image and text.

Yeah. I know. I mean, you're not getting what
you want.

I don't know what it is. I'm actually really
fascinated by it. Like, the factthat that because this seems to
be a central thing for you, butat the same time, you seem to
not wanna talk about it.

Well, no. I yeah. This is this is a problem. I was
interviewed by somebody fairlyrecently who's kept on with
these wonderful sort oftheoretical ideas about writing
and she said, and then do youthink that? And do you think
about that?
No. Like I said, so, you know,basically, I just kinda do what
I do. I mean, I I don't spend alot of time thinking about it.
So, I really don't know where togo with it. I mean, obviously,

(27:43):
if you're an art writer, you'redealing with image and text, and
people do it in different ways.

And and Well, I but I think some writers
actually feel very divorced.Like, you read their stuff and
you're like, do they have eyes?You know, like, that happens
too. Yes. Right?
Or or they just never choosegood images, and and you kinda
wonder about their visualliteracy when they can't, like,
even, you know, take a simplestraightforward, you know,
informational photograph orsomething or, like, or figure

(28:08):
out how to tell the story withimages. Do you know? So it's
like I I think it's I think,maybe, and I do wonder sometimes
whether it's the academia partof the art world because they
don't know

what to do with images sometimes.

Do you know? Because no one gets no one gets
tenure based on the images inyour paper. Yeah. Do you know
what I mean? Like, it's that'sjust not, like, the way the
system kinda works.
Yeah. So I guess that's what I'mtrying

to do. I I also was never never gonna go into
academia, so I I I really don'tI mean, I had a high no. A
college boyfriend who was whowas in law school, and he said,
you're a good thinker, butyou're a shallow thinker. And
and, no. And and, no, I thoughtabout it.
I was a little insulted, but Iwas in college. I didn't know
what kind of thinker I was,period. And and then I thought I

(28:53):
always thought afterwards, oh,he's probably right. You know? I
I don't I write about what Iwrite, and I don't dig into it
too much.
I mean, I'm not I don't spend alot of time thinking about
writing. I just write.

Can can I offer another interpretation? No.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe it's that you don't stake your
identity on these ideas in thesame way. I wonder.

Yeah. No. I don't stake my identity on any
particular Because

I do think a lot of people do do that.

Because that's why that word changing is called
changing. That's right. And I'venever seen anything wrong with
changing, and and the art worlddoesn't approve. I look at
Guston being the classicexample.

Exactly. Yeah. But I wonder, like, is it that
flexibility that has also madeyou so relevant for so many
decades?

I have no idea why I'm so relevant. I mean, I don't
this is not false modesty. Ireally just have no idea because
I have always just kinda goneahead and done what I how I
wanted to do. I used to wanna beliked, and I've stopped that
because I realized, no. Thesepeople don't like me.
I'm like

I always say, you know, most people don't like
themselves, so why are theygonna like you? I think there's
a grain of truth in that. Dothat. But I don't

know where else to go with this image and text
thing. I mean, you know, ideayou know, ideas come to you and
you think, well, I'll try that.Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't.

But where do you think the seed of that came
from? Because I I I can'tbelieve that it that it just
sort of, like, naturallyevolved. Well, I

mean, I've seen I mean, obviously, art is my
education. I mean, I've I've Iused to see 30 shows a week or
something. I mean, you know,I've I've seen one hell of a lot
of art. I mean, more art than ishealthy for anybody, I think.
Absolutely.
But I was writing for ArtInternational. That was just a
sort of lucky break because MaxKozlov was a friend and he and

(30:37):
Barbara Rose were writing forArt International, and then they
quit within a month or 2 of eachother. And Max recommended me,
and Jim Fitzsimmons wasdesperate. So and he would have
had I I never told him I waspregnant when I started because
he would have had a fit to knowthat the Art international New
York letter person was

Really? So it's classic sexism. I I yeah.

I mean, I didn't even know what sexism was then,
but Yeah. But I I I intuitedthat I should not say I'm having
a baby. I mean Right. And Imissed a couple of shows. And
and I said, well, I'm sorry.
I just had a kid. That's why Imissed the show too.

Right.

And he was like, oh, geez.

So do you wanna talk a little bit about that?
The role of sexism in the earlypart of your career? Like how
did that happen?

No. There again, I was, when I got into the women's
movement in 1970 basically, I'vealways just sort of, I guess,
had a thick skin or somethingbecause I never, I I never
really noticed much. And as afreelancer, I didn't ever know
that somebody got the jobinstead of me or somebody was
being paid more. I found outlater that the guys were getting

(31:44):
paid a lot more, but I it'sokay. I was making a living
anyway.
So but, and then I startedhearing women's stories and
women artists stories. And Idon't think it was that hard on
critics except for the story,Ashen story, which she was told
she knew artists too much. Butbut artists were really god when
I heard these stories fromwomen. I mean, it's just I I

(32:05):
remember one dealer telling mein the early seventies about
Mary Miss. She'd shown him herwork and was interested in being
in the gallery and and, hedidn't take her on and I said,
god.
Why didn't you tell I don't knowwho it was. And he said, oh,
well, I loved her work, but shewas so beautiful. I was afraid
I'd be taking it for the wrongreasons. I mean, I nearly died.

(32:26):
I was like, what?
So

I think that's something that I think maybe
generations following, like, wedon't understand because that
was never Yeah. Like, we wethought, like, how did people
not see this?

Yeah. Exactly.

And so that was really, like, you didn't see it
because you didn't really have aword for it. You didn't see
other people's experience, soyou didn't know this was a
pattern. Exactly.

Susan Bee (32:46):
It it's hard to even think back on the time period.
You couldn't really find anywomen in any of the museums. You
couldn't find books about womenartists. And, you know, here I
was, you know, marooned withthese minimalist, male artists
at Hunter and just going tothese Monday night series at AIR

(33:08):
where they had different womencritics and male critics talking
about feminist art. And we hadsomebody like Rosalind Krauss,
who was actually my thesisadvisor, who was against women's
art, you know?
And she'd come out and saythings like that. And so, you
know, as a young artist who wasstarting out, it was so

(33:30):
important to have these essaysand to have Lucy take seriously
women's art organizationswilling to write the essay for
the first print portfolio ofAIR, which was in 1976. And
these essays were really, reallycrucial. It's now it doesn't I

(33:50):
don't think from the perspectiveof the present day where you can
see women in museums, you can goto the Whitney Biennial and it
might be half women. But foryears, we were marching.
I mean, I remember going todemonstrations that she was at
literally with signs in front ofmuseums trying to get women and

(34:12):
also persons of color shown.When people say, Oh, it
happened. Well, it justhappened. None of this stuff
happened. It was really a fightand sometimes when I hear people
say oh, well, you know, now youcan just see x and y in the
museum.
You can, you know, see women'sart at the MET, and you can see,

(34:35):
you know, all sorts of thingsthat you couldn't see in the
seventies. But it wasn't itdidn't happen by mistake.

Yeah. I mean, we really just you know, life was
what it was. I went to a women'scollege. I went to Smith and
Mhmm. And, Oh, you went toSmith?
Yeah. Why?

Why why why do so many awesome women in the art
world come to come to Smith?

I don't know. But it would women's colleges are a
good thing. My mother had goneto Smith. And she was a she and
my father were both she was achurch mouse and my father was
just poor working class. Andand, because I mean, in class
identity, it's not somethingAmericans like to even think
about.
And Ever. And that and we did aa Heresies issue on class.

Heresies is a journal, a feminist journal.

A 17. Feminist Journal of Art and Politics.
And, and when we were foundingit, we we had what we call the
mother collective. And then thethe different issue collectives,
if somebody was interested indoing a lesbian thing, harmony
did a lesbian issue. But anyway,we did class thing.
We said, okay. We'll do an issueon class. Let's talk let's go

(35:40):
around the table and talk aboutclass and our own lived
experience.

Uh-oh.

And it was so funny because we all wanted to
be working class, you know. Andand a lot of us had come from,
you know, usually one me anyway,one thing away. 1 my parents my
father was raised working class,but by the time he got into
college at Yale at the age of16, he he wasn't working class
anymore. I mean, you know, andmy mother the same with my

(36:05):
mother and so on. So so that wassort of fascinating.
Well, my grandmother was afarmer. Well, did she own the
farm, you know, that we startedin on all this this stuff. It
was it was very interesting.

So what what did you learn from that? Because I
think that's exactly what kindof happened

to us. Well, we knew that Americans don't like
to talk about class. And so wethought we we will talk about
class. And and, I learned a lotabout my friends and our
pretensions. Yep.

Right. Right.

And I include myself in that. And I never
forgot my parents' story. Myparents said to me at one point
now, because they were in theupper middle class by then and
they said, why do you hate therich? And I said, because of
your stories of your childhoodsand youth and so on and getting
into college and so forth andthe way I mean, when my mother
was at Smith, there was one howone dorm for scholarship

(36:52):
students. They were all in oneplace.
Right. And she said she didn'tmind because they were
interesting people and they allthat she had more in common with
them than she did with the richkids in the other place. But but
I mean, a lot of these theydidn't know what they were
telling me. And I would they Ilistened to this stuff really
carefully. I mean, it made a bigimpression on me.
I mean

So I wonder, what happened at the Village
Voice? Like, what what was canyou explain your

Well, that that new guy whose name I have
blocked, Kim Kiff something,came in as the editor. And I had
been hired to write once a monthfor god's sakes.

This was the mid eighties?

Early eighties.

Early eighties.

Right. Yeah. I I think I did it for 5 years or
so. Anyway, to write about artand politics, which was fine, I
mean, once a month. And thenthis new guy came in, and he
fired me.
I mean, you know, and, and Iwent in to talk to him and see
what what was going on, and hesaid, it's not about your
politics. And I said, well,that's interesting that you
brought that up so immediately.I mean, I'm like so it must have

(37:49):
been about my politics. I it's abut the voice forgot.

But but they never gave you a real reason?

No. Jeff Weinstein was it was the betrayer. I mean,
he was the editor, and he shouldhave stood up for me, and he
didn't. So I have never reallyunderstood what I've got fired
from a lot of things. I mean,you know.

So that seems like a really odd sort of
decision.

Then I went to, what, In These Times or,

Oh, In These Times. Yeah. Yes.

In Chicago. They more or less fired me.

Why?

And then I went to, Z Magazine.

But why? Why did it

Susan Bee (38:19):
I I don't know.

They never said much. And by that time, I was
like, okay.

Okay.

I was interested in doing something else. I
didn't really I was in Boulder ahalf a year. I wrote from
Boulder for for z, I guess, andand they got rid of me too. I it
didn't make that much differencein my life, but I never was
clear about maybe it was toomuch about art for the political
things and too much aboutpolitics for the art things. Or

Oh, that sounds familiar. Yeah.

Susan Bee (38:45):
The establishment art world was very against, what she
was doing, supporting politicalartists, supporting work that
was not mainstream. Even hersupport early on of Eva Hesse
and eccentric abstraction andcertain forms of feminist art
like Judy Chicago, those thingswere not considered mainstream.

(39:10):
And somebody who was animportant critic at the time,
Hilton Kramer on The New YorkTimes, would never review those
works. So the fact that you cameout of art history and was a
really good writer, could writeabout pop art, could write about
political art. I mean, what madea difference really to me is
that she's a really good artcritic, you know?

(39:32):
She's a good writer, she's andshe can also write about things
like ecology, like if she whenshe turned her mind to different
parts of the art world thatweren't really being covered,
she probably got pushed back. Imean, I wouldn't really know. I
saw I saw people like RossKrause who were, you know,
against feminist art or againstpolitical art or feeling that it

(39:56):
was impure, that the art thatshe was, you know, that she was
speaking up for was notconsidered mainstream art at the
time. You know? Now you mightconsider that Nancy Spiro is
somebody who might be in amuseum, but in those days, Leon
and Nancy, nobody showed themand you know, except for AIR,

(40:17):
and Leon couldn't get shown.
Those kind of political artists,you know, the new museum was
just starting, and they werestarting to show alternative
what they called alternativeart. But, you know, she really
was the one who put it on themap, partially because of her
really good writing skills andher advocacy. I mean, she was

(40:41):
very involved with the ArtWorkers Coalition that was also
against the Vietnam War, And shewas involved with, printed
matter, which is very importantbecause people were starting to
show artists books and heresies,which was a very important
starting point for me looking atthis collective. I even went to

(41:03):
a meeting with her and AnnaMinjetta. I tried to join the
issue on the ecology.
They said it was an open call,and I was so intimidated by Lucy
and Anna that I never went back.It was like they were so scary,
to me as a young person, youknow. So she just she was
everywhere and she really cameout and, like, I was in a little

(41:26):
group on the lower east side ofwomen called the limbo lounge
and she came and spoke to us. Itwasn't an important group. It
was just a group of women whoformed together.
We were doing shows together,and she came and talked to us.
You know? And I feel that thatopenness really went missing

(41:46):
when she moved out to New Mexicoand kind of, you know, I'm I'm
glad for her that she, you know,she got time to herself to do
her own work. But she was sopresent during those years, you
know, that I think that made abig difference to have an art
critic who is actually alsowilling to, you know, to be an

(42:08):
activist.

So what's been what has it been like living in
New Mexico in general?

Heavenly. Like Yeah. I mean, I don't I I love
being outdoors until my knee bitthe dust of few years ago. And
so I was spend a lot of timehiking and camping and and a lot
of good friends and, you know,it's just it's I'm really glad I
did what I did and so I've neverreally regretted any decisions.
I've made some stupid ones, Ithink.

(42:38):
But but,

Haven't we all?

Yeah. But, you know, they've always worked out.

So how do you think it's impacted your
writing? And and the way and thedifferent ideas that you're

Well, I think, I mean, New Mexico has has made a
big imprint. I've written 2, 3books on New Mexico.

Right. And Your Galisteo book is quite, quite
great.

The Galisteo, then there's one on the Galisteo
Basin that came before thatarchaeology and history and
really no no art. I mean, noneof them really have much art in
them. I I stick in some art nowand then. But, and then one on I
did a the text for a book onChaco Canyon with a photographer
friend of mine.

And I wanted to talk about Chaco Canyon shortly.

Oh, well, let's talk about Chaco Canyon. Oh,
yeah.

I love that talk. Okay. Go

ahead. I went to Chaco Canyon first in 1972. It's
a fascinating place. Yeah. AndNew Mexico is fast.
It's there's no my partner iswas raised in New Mexico. It's
in Alamogordo. It's White Sands.But but, we we for the pandemic,
we've every Sunday, we take a 4to 7 hour drive around the back

(43:40):
roads of New Mexico. And eventhough he was raised here, you
know, there's we always findthings that are fascinating.
And and it's it's a reallyinteresting it's got so many
layers

Right.

Of history. And and I I think old age gets you
more interested in history orsomething. Maybe.

But then even like someone like David
Wojnarowicz found Chaco Canyon.

Oh, yes. And I you know, I didn't know for years
that that was where that facething of his would came.

But so what do you think the draw is of Chaco
Canyon?

It's they I mean, I always talk about the mystery
of Chaco Canyon and and it isvery mysterious. I mean, in in a
funny way, we know more and moreabout it.

So Lucy Lippard wasn't simply getting away from
the New York art world, butmaybe she was going towards
something else, like the nativecultures in the southwest, where
prominent sites like ChacoCanyon continue to enthrall
visitors from all over theworld. Between 85250 CE, Chaco

(44:37):
Canyon was the home to thePueblo people who created some
fascinating artifacts and grandbuildings that you can see even
today. A sacred site, it's alsosacred to the Hopi and Navajo
people. I myself had thepleasure of visiting Chaco
Canyon, and I can tell you itreally is unlike anything you've

(44:59):
ever seen. But like you said,there are so many layers.
It's not it's

Yeah. And it's it's such a strange place. I
mean, why is it there? And a agood friend of mine is Anna
Soffer who's who who reallybroke open the astronomical
aspects of it. And thearchaeologists were all like,
didn't like what she was doingand that's this is bullshit and
so forth.
And now they're all realizedthat it's there and they have to

(45:23):
deal with it. But, so it it andit

and How how dare someone tell tell them. Right?

And she came out of art. She was an artist and
that's and she saw things, Ithink, that they didn't see by
just being an artist.

Sometimes art and like good writing is making
connections other people don'tmake.

Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, you know,
I saw it at an impressionabletime of my life and it's, I've
been back lots of times and it'sjust so fascinating.

So what captured your imagination about Chaco
Canyon?

By the time I got down here, I had already become
interested in Native Americanart. The American Indian
Community House was very brieflyin the Leo Castelli building on
West Broadway. I didn't knowthat. Yeah. So I went in.
I always saw everything. And Iwent in and and Peter Jemison
and Jolene Rickard were the weredirecting it. They were talking

(46:14):
to me as I was wandering aroundand they said, you don't know
anything about American Indianart, do you? And I said, no. How
would I?
You know? And, and they said,took me in hand to kind of and
decided to educate me. Oh. Andthere was a show at the Queen's
Museum at the time of GeorgeLongfish and I went out to see
that, which I might not havedone otherwise. And

So that's an interesting connection. I didn't
know about that earlyconnection.

Yeah. Learning about Native American. Harmony
was living down here teaching atUNM briefly. Anyway, she knew
Jaune Quick to see Smith who wasdown here. And they did a show
called Women of Cedar and Sageabout native women, and Harmony
probably said let's get Lucy todo a text.
And so I came down, and I Ispent time with Jean and Ramona

(46:59):
Secestoa, who's good artistshere. And she was a weaver at
that point and, and Hopi. Andthat that between that and Peter
and Jolene, I I started gettingreally interested in native
stuff. And then in Boulder, Iwent on trips to the Four
Corners and stuff withphotographers, people I knew,
and camping trips and seeing alot of rock art. And I fell for

(47:20):
rock art.
When I got down here, I got toknow Polly Shasman, who's the
the Duane of all rocksouthwestern rock art. And and
we hiked and saw stuff and soon, and she's still a close
friend. I mean, the the westinterested me. My grandmother
told me stories about the westbecause she was raised in Dakota
Territory, Wyoming, andColorado. My grandkids started

(47:43):
calling me my oldest grandsonstarted calling me cowboy
grandma because I lived in thewest.
And, and then when he was alittle older, he said, you know,
why aren't you cowgirl grandma?And I said, well, I I am. You
know, like, exhibit. And so thewhole Pueblo culture is not
something I'd ever knownanything about until we I mean,
when Charles and I came downbecause he wanted to go to

(48:04):
Shalico at Zuni, and that thatwas my first we went to dances
at other Pueblos, and I waslike, woah. This is so
interesting.
So that that was another openingup. I mean, I was always I never
ever I don't do so well doingthe same thing over and over
again, So I'm always kinda whensomething else comes along, I'm
excited. Absolutely.

So so, one of the one of her also her
intellectual interest seems tobe indigenous work and
particularly, her book aroundChaco Canyon and a lot of that.
How do you think that fits intothe larger?

I mean, I think it really fits into Lucy's
profound sense of thinking aboutissues of equity in a political
sense. I think that as we justwere talking about the community
of artists that were part of thedowntown scene when in the
sixties seventies when she wasreally involved in conceptualism

(49:01):
was white, middle class, drivenby male thoughts and directives
largely. But there's a lot ofother communities as we know
doing other really importantwork blocks away from from where
that was happening. And somehowthose stories haven't been told.
And I think one of the thingsthat really Lucy took on

(49:22):
personally, particularly whenshe was on the mother board of
the Heresies Collective, wasthinking through her own
positionality and the voices ofthe BIPOC and non white people
who were excluded and that shewas a part of that story to some
degree and how could she, youknow, respond to that in a way

(49:42):
that was productive.
And I think that aligned withher also burgeoning interest in
thinking about the land andthinking about the environment
and thinking about climate. AndI think that those things come
together very, easily for her inthat intellectual way,
conceptual way.

So now in terms of, the, you know, kind of your
imagination, where does it livetoday?

Do I have one? Where where would it live? Where
does yours live?

Mine lives often in art. That's why I write about
art. That's what they say.

Yeah. I don't I don't think mine is in art
particularly. More in the worldthe outside outdoors, and that's
kind of where I mean, New Mexicois it it it sparks imagination
all over the place, I guess.

So so the way you talk about are the about
your writing and sort of likewhere your imagination lives
sounds very much like yourwriting in general. Where it's
sort of like there are thesejourneys you take.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that's I mean, I often say
this is why I don't do, well,interviews, but, I often say
that I I don't think until Ihave a keyboard in front of me.
I mean, instead of this thisthing now, these damn things.
You're pointing at your laptop.
Yeah. And people say if you'rewriting I mean since I never

(51:03):
taught, I never learned how towrite in the air. I have friends
who teach, are incrediblyarticulate and when I'm on
panels and stuff I think oh wow.Wish I if I had a keyboard I
could have said that. How is itdifferent writing online?
Because all of your work isonline basically.

You know, it's my passion. I find it's, I think
because with talking about imageand text, you don't have any
real, you know, barriers toinclude a video clip. Include as
many photos or apps as you want,which I find were very freeing.

Yeah.

But I also love hyperlinks. I love the links to
other things. I think that'ssuch an important part of the
writing that I feel like I misswhen I write in print.

Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah.

Do you know? Because I feel like it allows me
to talk talk about somethingwithout having to necessarily
always going into the history,let's say, because I can put a
link if you wanna learn more.Sure. It allows me to get to the
point, but I just love thatpoet, the citational poetry of
it. Do you know?

That's wonderful. Yeah.

Do you know? I love that part.

I never have written for online, and it's for
as far as I'm concerned, it'slike it's not really I mean, I I
read your writing and and andeverybody's, and it's fine
online. But for myself, I don'twanna write online. I do.
Absolutely.

Well, it's like the decision not to have a
television.

Well, it's bad enough with this thing. Yeah. I
mean, I I don't surf at all, butI but I do find myself drifting
into Absolutely. For a fewminutes of a an animal thing or
something. You know?

Few minutes. Let's say in that couple of
hours.

Yeah. Well, I do I do I don't do that. But I but I
do look up some of these, youknow, they found this animal in
the bushes, and I think, oh, I'mgonna read that anyway.

Absolutely. No. I I mean, I could totally
relate. So from your perch herein Galisteo, how has the world
changed for you?

Galisteo, in a funny way, I I think I well, I
think I broadened my view bybeing here. At the same time, I
narrowed it down to a tinycommunity, which is
contradictory. But

But also sounds right.

Yeah. Because I mean, I I I always tried to work
with communities and stuff and Ithere was never really a
community organizer on anylevel. But Yeah. But I like the
idea of being in a community.And I I was 55.
I thought I was old. Totally.

Well, I I'm thinking of, like, many artists,
writers that never leave theirtowns. Right?

Yeah.

That see the world and can tell you about the
world in so many ways.

Yeah. So you asked about, why Lucy moved to
the southwest and kind of thatwas she taking herself away from
from the world? What'sfascinating to me is the number
of women artists of thatgeneration who moved out there.
Right? You have Nancy Holt.
You have Harmony Hammond. Youhave Mae Stevens who was a very
close friend. You have JudyChicago. So I think that that

(53:54):
Lucy saw herself as moving verymuch into a community, actually,
of of people who had settled outthere and were working in that
context, which, you know, if youwanna throw Georgia O'Keefe into
that mix too, I don't know thatshe'd wanna be there, but, you
know, it's part of the story. SoI think there's a way in which
she did not see it as that faras out of the art world, not the
art world that she was a part ofand the people she was friends

(54:15):
with.

So, I mean, Galisteo has this incredible
reputation of this, like, littleI don't know. This little,
cluster of really smart,accomplished people.

Well, it annoys me because it you know, there are
some of us here. But basically,it's a village that's, you know,
founded by Hispanos and andthere are still they're they're
in the minority now because thethe village has been so
gentrified. I mean, when when Imoved here, one old lady, a
local lady said to me, we likeyour house because it's so

(54:47):
small. I mean, you know, becauseRight. It wasn't a mansion.
This side of the creek has neverbeen the the the fancy part. And
now it's Oh,

I see there's some fancier places.

Well, now it's the most interesting. I mean, we we
we've also got the firedepartment and the community
center right here.

So so you do the community newsletter here at
Galveston?

I've done it for 25 years now, I think.

So what's that been like?

It's been wonderful. When I first was
here, I was helping build partof the fire station. And,
somebody said, oh, you're awriter. And I said, yeah. And
and and they said, well, we havesomething called Fireflyer,
which was one sheet, which cameout I never saw any more than
one, I don't think.
But and they said, will youwrite something about what fun
it is to help build the firedepartment? So I said, I did.

(55:30):
And, and then somebody saidsomething about it. There was a
guy in the fire department,lovely gay guy who was much too
much of an activist already, andhe so he wanted to do a
newsletter. So, and I said,well, I I I would love to work
on it or whatever, and I've donea lot of editing and things.
And then he he called me duringthe summer, and he said, my

(55:51):
partner's leaving me because I'mtoo involved with too many
things. And so you can do thenewsletter. And and so I I took
it to the community association,and and one woman said, one of
the local women who was thePatron family, which is the rich
family in town, and she said, wedon't need no local history. She

(56:15):
said, all the old people are ateach other's throats about
things that happened a 100 yearsago. And, and I thought that was
pretty silly, but it wasperfectly true.
Right. But, anyway, buteverybody else was pretty
enthused about doing it. And sothey said gave me the okay, and
we and, so I've done it eversince. And it's, you know, it's
a it I love doing it. It'scalled El Puente de Gallisteo,

(56:35):
and and,

And it's printed?

Oh, yeah. It's printed. I I people every now
and then, somebody says, oh,just you know, it's it's a
hassle because I have to everymonth, it's about a 100 sit down
and stamp and sticker and labeland so forth. But I can listen
to the news and do that. And Jimhelps me sometimes.
I mean

Totally. Also, I mean, speaking of your
experience in terms of, like,books like 6 years, this idea
of, like, creating thisanthology or compilation of
disparate events is kinda what anewsletter is. No?

Yeah. Yeah. My friends from out out of Galiste
are always wanting to subscribeand they don't get to. I mean, I
said, no, this is for Galisteand some Totally. We pay for it
and it's like, my son gets itand I don't think he pays much
attention to it.
But it's the only one I I sendit to.

But I see a I see a commonality. You were kind
of doing something similar forthe conceptual art movement.
Yeah. Now you're doing it foryour town and your village in a
way. You're sort of, like,helping write this history.

And I did, I did this this thing. So

Yeah. So the the book you just handed me is
called Village of GalisteoHistorical Time Line 18 14 to
2014.

Yep. Yep. And it's just a little booklet. We've
published 2 or 3 books, littlebooks like that. It at Puente
Press.
This one I think I paid for,but, but it's I love doing it.
It keeps me in touch with

everything and But, I mean, to speak of your
writing in general, you're oneof the first art writers to
really bring the eye in.

I I couldn't help it.

Yeah. But I mean, but I think that is more
revolutionary than I thinkpeople realize.

But see, in my day, there was you didn't learn
how to do art writing. I mean,there there's no courses in
curating or art writing oranything. You just did it. And
most of the people when I gavethis talk at at, The New School
in, several years ago, I said toat the beginning, okay. Yeah.
How many people are in theaudience are art writers? And a
lot of people raised theirhands. And then I said, and how

(58:30):
many of you thought that waswhat you were gonna do for your
living? And Almost not. Nobodyraised their hand.
Because in those days, you know,everybody wanted to be a poet or
and I wanted to write fictionand

And so many early art writers were poet.

Yeah. And they were.

You know, the other part of of Lucy's story is
she has spent a lot of time inMaine and still does every
summer. And so I think that forher, the kind of sweep of the
United States is just part ofthe the playing field that she's
interested in, particularly asshe's gotten in the last decades
really involved in ideas of landart and that I've also believed

(59:07):
grows out of her feminism.Really?

So how would you connect those those things?

Well, I think the book overlay does a lot of
that work. Right? The, idea ofthe way that women in particular
approached land art, Anna Menjieprimary among them, I think
really drove an interest andexpanded an instinct with Lucy's
critical thinking about anexamination of the land and what
the land holds.

So now I'd love to ask you a little bit about
land art because I think beingin New Mexico, you can't at
least I can't help but thinkabout it a little bit because
the landscape plays such a bigrole.

Well, that's I wrote something for one of the
land art catalogs or somethingsaying where I said I asked
myself what kind of land art Iwould like to see here. None. I
didn't I don't I the land isinterests me far more than
whereas land art interests me alot. I I always call it an urban
interest, an urban art really,colonizing

Hrag Vartanian (01:00:05):
Right.

Lucy Lippard (01:00:06):
Ruralism or whatever.

So so how do you how do you resolve that between
that?

Well, I I haven't, you know, I I like art about
land, but I don't like art thatfucks around with the land.
Right. Originally, earthworkswere fascinating because they
were so different and they didget you out of the city. It
wasn't escape from the artgallery world and so on. I mean,
I love Spiral Jetty.
I love Nancy Holt's sun tunnelsand and Charles Ross' Staraxis,

(01:00:31):
which isn't done yet, but but Ican't stand what Heizer does. I
mean, if you walk around theland here, even a coyote trail
or just a little walking pathcan become a gully so easily.
And he's made this huge gully. Imean, you know, like, the
landscape doesn't need moregullies. I mean, it was just
just annoying.
So I got more interested in landuse than land than land art.

(01:00:54):
Earthworks, have have had theirday, I think. I mean, when all
of us urban folks go west, weget excited.

Smitten by the landscape.

Yes. I mean, you know, I did a BBC interview at
one point and they wereinterviewing all artists all
over New Mexico and andeverybody was talking about the
light and the and the this andthe that. And I said, yeah. But
it's one of the poorest statesin the union. Land is about
people.
I this cultural landscape arewhat really interests me. I
mean, I I like wilderness aswell as the next person, what's

(01:01:25):
left of it. But, but it thecultural landscape is far more
interesting to me. And that'spartly looking at there are 8
Pueblo ruins in this in in theGalaseo Basin. Mhmm.
And that fascinates me. I mean,you know, and you you can't
walk. I mean, see all this stuffunder here, like

Right.

In that. That's all stuff I found on my land and
and they're

So it's this old

Oh, wow. Arrowheads and

Arrowheads and

other things.

Sort of

spearhead things and so forth. So Oh, wow. And
that just all came up from by mypump house. Wow. So anyway and
I've always loved rocks for somereason.
I the house is full of rocks.And, and at that, I liked rocks
most of my life somehow. And and

I'm almost sensing a theme of time in your
interest.

Time? Yeah. Yeah. I call I called the Chaco book
time and time again. I was Ilove that title.
I was so glad he went with it.Oh, you know?

Do you do you have a spiritual practice?

No. None. No? I'm an atheist and and, that's I
mean, I I suspect there'ssomething out there. I mean, I I
don't I'm not totally stupid,but

I could Sure.

Sure. Sure. It, I'm it doesn't it interested me
for a while and doesn't reallyanymore. Now my parents were
liberals and agnostics, and Ihad to go them one better, so I
became socialist and atheist.

Why not? Yeah. Really. You know, why not? How
do you maintain hope?
And how do you continue to betrue to your ideals when, you
know, clearly a lot of peopledon't have the same commitment
you do?

Oh, I don't know if it's commitment or habit.
Like, I don't Well, could beboth.

Could be both.

I don't maintain hope. I mean, I I think this is
a pretty incredibly hopelessmoment. So I'm not particularly
hopeful, but I'm I'm in I'venever been depressed. I mean,
I'm not I don't have adepressive personality or
whatever. So just Are you anoptimist?
I think I have been off and on,but I I don't know if I'm I
remember somebody said,pessimism is a waste of time,

(01:03:36):
and I I like that. But so I'mnot really a pessimist, but I
can't say I'm an optimisteither. And I don't go around
being hopeless, but privately, Idon't have a whole lot of
optimism about anything that'sgoing down now. But but we
always I mean, people are, youknow, capable of changing
things, and hopefully, we willbefore it's too damn late.

You're you're so refreshingly realistic.

I guess so. Yeah. But I'm, you know, but I'm I'm
privileged. I mean, I I make aliving, and I have a nice place
to live in and Sure. And, soforth.
So it's it's I I think if I wereone of these poor souls who'd
just been burned out by thesefires

Right.

I would be pretty hopeless. They don't have
insurance. Nobody will insurethose little villages anyway
because they are

You're talking about recent fires around

the river. The fire fires are huge. We still
still still going. 300,000acres. Oh, wow.

I didn't realize it was that long.

Oh, yeah. It's like, 400 square miles or
something. And this is becominga chronic 600 square mile I
can't remember the date.

It's becoming a perennial issue. Do you think
part of your interest in ChacoCanyon is the environmental part
of it? Because people talk aboutthe environmental

Well, Chaco is sort of anti environmental. It's
one of the interesting thingsabout it. They they they they
went miles away for buildingmaterials and stuff and they but
they chose this place for somespiritual reason and and that's
really a mystery. I mean, andthe Pueblo people talk about it
in a different way than we lookat it. And and, the the Pueblo

(01:05:08):
people don't believe in ruins,and they don't like rock art to
be rock art because it's notart.

It's living.

It's it's life. Yeah. And I still use the word
rock art because it's beautiful.But but the the fact that
nothing is a ruin because thespirits are still there and it's
alive. Right.
It isn't dead. Right. And that'skind of fascinating. I mean, but
I don't necessarily believe Imean, I'm not a Pueblo person.

(01:05:35):
So No.
I understand. Yeah.

No. But I just wonder if, like, Chaco Canyon
and part of your interest isalso in some ways it's our, it
might be our future in a way.Like, you know, it, you know,
the, and it's not the onlyPueblo civilization that, you
know, changed according to theenvironmental reality.

Yeah. But it is really it's it's it's unique.
It's it's a very peculiar place.

So what do you feel like, you one thing you've
taken away from Lucy's work thatyou feel like stays with you in
terms of your own curatorialpractice when you put maybe the
experience putting together theexhibition? Is there something
or maybe a a work of hers thatis the one that stays with you
the most?

Catherine Morris (01:06:19):
Well, the work that, of course, will always
stay with me is 6 6 years. Oneof the takeaways that I think
I've gotten from Lucy is herpragmatism. I think that she is
a person who thinks deeply andthinks critically, but also
doesn't lose track of the kindof human aspect of all of this

(01:06:40):
stuff that we're all doing. AndI think that's very important.
And I think that doesn't, stopher from using her voice in the
way that she thinks is mostimportant and has the most value
as a social idea.
But at the same time, when youmeet her, she takes what she
does very seriously, but shedoes not take herself that

(01:07:01):
seriously. And that's always arefreshing thing.

What have you seen, younger emerging feminists
sort of look at her work andsort of admire the most?

Catherine Morris (01:07:11):
I think that what people admire most about
Lucy is, as I've said, is thatshe has really stuck to her
beliefs and to her values. Andshe keeps writing. I guess I am
glad to hear you ask thequestion because I want people
to be thinking about Lucy, and Ihope they are. That would be a
great takeaway from thisconversation, for example. You

(01:07:33):
know, I do think that thatgenerational knowledge of people
who've come before them ebbs andflows depending on what
conversations are being had.
So I think it's time for a newedited book of Lucy's essays.

What a great idea.

Susan Bee (01:07:48):
I just, I wanna just say that I totally admire her,
and I think it's very unusualfor an art critic to be so
generous and so supportive ofartists. You know, a lot of art
critics at that time, and evennow, would stand back from being
involved with artists. And shereally threw herself into the

(01:08:12):
politics of the time, whichwere, you know, very intense. It
would you know, if you wanted toget involved with something, it
wasn't like a small matter tohave a meeting with, you know,
the Art Workers Coalition. Youknow, these kind of fierce guys
and overalls.
And she just would go in and II'd have to say she was

(01:08:33):
unintimidated by what was, youknow, a rather, controversial
time period. That's what Ireally admire about her is that
she was willing to stand up andsay what she thought and to
really put forward the peopleshe wanted to put forward. She
didn't go for that kind ofmainstream approach. I think in

(01:08:57):
the end, that's what makes herwork stand out from that time
period.

Is there anything you wanna end with,
Lucy? No. Well, I just wanna saythank you because it was a real

Well, I'm sorry that I didn't I didn't know you
were gonna be such a goodinterviewer. An hour is all I
can do.

Well, I I mean, I I was honored with even just
an hour. Mhmm. But it's justmore to sort of understand, a
little bit about where yourwriting comes from Yeah. Because
it's I think, the writing stillresonates with so many of us.

Well, that's nice.

And I think that's really nice.

That's good. That made my day. Oh my god.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. This podcast
is edited by a producer,Isabella Segalovich, and a quick
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