This article from December, 1965 in Artforum magazine was one of Kurt's first upon joining the faculty at UCLA (as an Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Art Galleries). In it, he reviews an exhibition of "Japanese Treasures" at the Los Angeles County Museum, which he finds lacking in organization and effect. Images (some the same ones as were included in the original article) have been added.
Artists as Victims of Their Own Success
Here's another lengthy but information-packed article from the November, 1967 edition of Art International magazine--to which Kurt was a regular contributor--a critique of exhibitions by Robert Rauschenberg, Rick Herold, Peter Voulkos, James Turrell and Allan Kaprow at Los Angeles area museums and galleries.
Foreword to an exhibition by artist Robert Ellis
While teaching in New Zealand at the Elam School of Fine Arts, Kurt penned this foreword for an exhibit of works by Robert Ellis. "The paintings of Robert Ellis are mature and in no way parochial. From the technical aspect alone they represent an impressive and highly developed achievement."
The Failure and Future of Art
Kurt challenges the "art establishment" again in this essay published in May, 1967 in the pages of Art International magazine. As was his custom, he swings around to various topics in order to make his point; "...the various factions of the world of so-called Art have been committing suicide over the last few years, without needing much encouragement from the avant-garde." He touches on Flower Power, marijuana, and predicts the creation of the World Wide Web, what he calls "an instantaneous communications network." Never shy about the truth, Kurt states: "...in a highly structured commercial economy the word "free" becomes one of the most suspect and revolutionary threats to be given aesthetic statement."
Provocative Artist Andy Warhol
In this lengthy essay for Art International magazine from October, 1966, Kurt reflects on the work of Andy Warhol, his paintings, silkscreens, films, music and the whole Warhol creative "scene." It's an inside look at the history of one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century from the perspective of art historian von Meier. Kurt also reviews the work of Robert Irwin and Kenneth Price, who were just at the beginnings of their long artistic careers. Photos, images and links have been added.
The New "Pure" Painting
In the mid-to-late 1960s, Kurt was a regular contributor to the magazine Art International. His beat was the Los Angeles art world, and his articles are insightful and tightly drawn, though lengthy. For those interested in art history and its relationship to contemporary art, there is a wealth of information.
He also challenges some of the the tenets of art history; "Such a historical study involves a question of radical methodology more importantly than it does an unorthodox concept of history: for one would have to discard (at least temporarily) the comforting clichés of art historical "movements" and the perennial embalmed syllabus based on simple-minded chronological sequence, and once again (for once?) look at the works of art themselves."
Art in The Cultural Revolution
In this article from 1969, Kurt brings together a variety of themes he had been exploring for the previous four years and packs them all into one piece. With regard to the world of "fine art" movements he concludes, "But now we have rediscovered that the whole world is art and everyone is an artist, so how can there by any more movements?" Rock and Roll, Marshall McLuhan, Marcel Duchamp and Mr. Boob from Yellow Submarine all make an appearance.
The word "Playboy" was written in to top right-hand corner of the first page, though it does not appear to have been published in that magazine. Perhaps in an effort to encourage that, he discusses the use of explicit sexual images in contemporary and Pop art, but in his typical fashion takes things well beyond that subject. "The question now is simply whether or not we can utilize the amazing resources and efficiencies developed by some 5,000 years of art, science, technology and social organization in order to, first, avoid global suicide, and then to make life freer and more beautiful."
Hyperlinks and images have been added to the original material.
Mixed Masters
"So now the secret is out. And it turns out never to have been a secret at all. Everyone can be beautiful. There are no ugly human beings -- and maybe not even any "pretty" ones, who are pretty just because some anonymous medium tells us so. When we realize that there are just different human beings, instantaneously the potentiality for beauty in our lives is expanded to infinity..."
In his remarkable introduction to the catalog for Mixed Masters, a 1967 exhibition at The University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, Kurt eloquently displays the truth of what he terms the "cultural revolution" and, accordingly, reveals himself as the insightful and sensitive humanist he was.
Funksville: The West Coast Scene
Artist Billy Al Bengston polishing his work in the mid-nineteen sixties.
This Article appeared in the December, 1965 edition of Art and Australia and was co-authored by Kurt and his Princeton University classmate Carl Belz. Carl went on to teach art history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at Mills College in Oakland. He landed at Brandeis University in the 1960s and became the Director of its Rose Museum in 1974. In '65 Kurt had just begun teaching at UCLA in Los Angeles and Carl was at Mills College; they worked together on the "History of Rock and Roll" project but ultimately, the book was published under Carl's name. This article is charmingly--and so very "1965"--in its language and references: "One of the reasons why neither the term Funk, nor the phenomenon itself, has yet been accredited a real importance is the sheer difficulty of talking or writing clearly about Funk. "Like, if you gotta ask, man, you ain't never gonna find out what it is."
Gemini Rising
In 1968, Kurt was invited to provide the text for an exhibition catalog at the Witte Memorial Museum in San Antonio, Texas. The exhibition featured lithographic works by various artists such as Robert Rauchenberg, Frank Stella and Claes Oldenburg produced at Gemini G.E.L., a print studio formed in 1966. Kurt's catalog text, entitled "Gemini Rising", discusses the artworks, but also the implications of the Gemini enterprise, overall, which he praises.
Kurt also traveled to San Antonio for the opening, at which he delivered a talk. Though no notes or record of his remarks are available, letters from Martha Utterback, the curator of the museum, indicate that his talk created quite a stir. For example, she says, "John Leeper, director of the McNay, told me was so sorry to have missed your talk as he had heard that it outraged so many people." And, "Mrs. Katz left town Monday, but not before delivering a homily, by phone, on the evils of ruining such a fine mind, with such a high I.Q. as yours, with drugs; she said she knew you liked them whether you took them or not....But I enjoyed your visit and being around you. There aren't too many incredible people. I wish you had left the funny page of lecture notes here."
In addition to the text of "Gemini Rising" a portion of a letter from Kurt to a writer compiling an anthology a year later is also included below. In it, Kurt speaks of the role of Gemini, the world of "fine art" and most significantly, his concerns about western culture. "There is a revolution underway. Its goal is nothing short of saving the planet earth. There are many artists, more scientists, and even some educators who are up front in this revolution." It's both a snapshot of the times of 1969, and a glimpse into the personal struggle taking place in Kurt's life.
Victor Brauner
Submitted to Art News Magazine in 1966, this article was held by its editor Thomas Hess until 1967, and returned to Kurt unpublshed (with apologies). It is a fine portrait of the artist Victor Brauner (1903-1966), and Kurt connects Brauner's style (early psychological surrealism and later Klee-like whimsy) with the influence of Hassidism in his early life. This article demonstrates Kurt's scholarship and some of his most polished writing, and is an excellent addition to the written material available about Brauner. Images and hyperlinks have been added.
New York 13: A Critical Review
"...how can we ever hope to come to a final recognition of art that is an instrument of totalitarian control as distinct from art that helps to set us free?" With this question Kurt reset the terms of his relationship to the art world of 1969. Having risen to the top echelon of art critics, Kurt's disenchantment with the whole "scene" is revealed in his statement, "To be sure, I have considered the virtues of blowing up every art gallery and museum in the United States and Canada--for starters..." This review, which appeared in artscanada, is among the last of his articles published in the pages of the many leading art magazines to which he had regularly contributed.
Review: Anton Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Art
Kurt was a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Free Press, an alternative newspaper which was published weekly from 1964-1978. This book review by Kurt from 1967, published in the Los Angeles Free Press, reveals the meaningful influence of the work of Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller on Kurt at that time. His criticisms of higher education are forthright; the impacts of Buddhism, G. Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, and leaving UCLA, Los Angeles and the world of art criticism for the bucolic Napa Valley and a professorship at Sacramento State University remained ahead.
The Background of Transparency and Some Insights into Reflection
"Scholarly writing is that in which the author explains his own jokes, tells you where he heard each one of them, and if he can, who told them first." In making this comment, Kurt appears to be referring to this essay and to himself. Written in 1968 for an exhibition at California State College at Fullerton while he was living in Venice, California in his last year as an assistant professor at UCLA, it almost appears as if Kurt is mocking criticism, scholarship, and art while indulging in that of which he feels critical. He gave up writing as an art critic not too long thereafter. It's an informative essay, but oddly self-negating.
The Artist as Shaman
Written in 1969 or 1970, this essay presages the very dilemma the world finds itself in today. Kurt declares civilization's state of emergency, noting the ecological, political and social fragmentation and damage to human society, the planet and its inhabitants. He reviews the role of art in the development of civilization--how artists have been used and abused by those in power, but still manage to provide vision and impetus for positive change. This essay is an uncompromising and erudite indictment of "business as usual" in the 20th century, and remains highly relevant to those of us now living in the 21st century.
A Portfolio of Piles
In cooperation with Fine Arts Gallery at the University of British Columbia, artist Iain Baxter, President of N.E. Thing Co. commissioned Kurt to write an essay to accompany a portfolio of fifty-eight black and white photographs of piles - chains, lumber, donuts, wire, scrap metal, cargo containers - the sorts of piles we see around us every day. In the same way he played rugby, Kurt grabbed the subject and ran with it in an entertaining, informative and unexpected way.
The Current Moment In Art
In 1966, Kurt attended a conference and art exhibition in San Francisco entitled "The Current Moment in Art", which he covered for an article in Art International magazine. Predictably, he found "the current moment" of concern. He writes about "...the relative swiftness and totality with which the artistic revolutionaries of yesteryear have become the True-Believers and reactionaries of today....Eventually it must be asked how the Establishment either encourages or discourages, stimulates or represses, helps or hinders the creation of new works of art."
Violence - Art and the American Way
Protesters at the Destruction In Art Seminar in London, 1966 (photo John Prosser)
The 1960s were violent and tumultuous; assassinations, war in Viet Nam, inner-city riots and student protests kept the country on edge. Naturally, art reflected the times, and events such as the Destruction In Art Seminar in London in September, 1966 offered performances by destruction artists. Kurt was right in the middle of it, and wrote this essay, which appeared in the publication ArtsCanada.
