Lucy R. Lippard
Lucy Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the "dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. She is the author of 21 books on contemporary art and has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations.
Lucy R. Lippard | |
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Born | April 14, 1937 |
Nationality | American |
Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1968), CAA Frank Jewett Mather Award for Criticism (1975), CAA Distinguished Feminist Award (2012), CAA Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art (2015) |
Early life and education
Lucy Lippard was born in New York City and lived in New Orleans and Charlottesville, Virginia, before enrolling at Abbot Academy in 1952. She attended Smith College and earned a B.A. in 1958. In 1962, she earned an M.A. degree in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.[2]
Just out of college, Lippard began working in the library at the Museum of Modern Art in 1958 where, in addition to reshelving the library after a fire, she was "farmed out" to do research for curators.[3] She credits these years of working at MoMA paging, filing and researching as preparing her "well for the archival, informational aspect of conceptual art."[4] At MoMA she worked with curators such as Bill Lieberman, Bill Seitz and Peter Selz.[3] By 1966, she had curated two traveling exhibitions for MoMA, one on "soft sculpture" and one on Max Ernst, as well as worked with Kynaston McShine on Primary Structures before he was hired by the Jewish Museum, taking the show with him.[3] It was at MoMA that Lippard met Sol LeWitt who was working the night desk; John Button, Dan Flavin, Al Held, and Robert Ryman all held positions at the museum during this time as well.[3]
Career
Since 1966, Lippard has published 20 books—including one novel—on feminism, art, politics and place.[2] She has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations. A 2012 exhibition on her seminal book, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object at the Brooklyn Museum, titled "Six Years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art", cites Lippard's scholarship as its point of entry into a discussion about conceptual art during its era of emergence, demonstrating her crucial role in the contemporary understanding of this period of art production and criticism.[5] Her research on the move toward Dematerialization in art making has formed a cornerstone of contemporary art scholarship and discourse. Lucy Lippard was a member of the populist political artist group known as the Art Workers Coalition, or AWC. Her involvement in the AWC as well as a trip she took to Argentina—such trips bolstered the political motivations of many feminists of the time—influenced a change in the focus of her criticism, from formalist subjects to more feministic ones.[6]
Co-founder of Printed Matter, Inc (an art bookstore in New York City centered on artist's books), the Heresies Collective, Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, and other artists' organizations, she has also curated over 50 exhibitions, done performances, comics, guerrilla theater, and edited several independent publications the latest of which is the decidedly local La Puente de Galisteo in her home community in Galisteo, New Mexico.[7] She has infused aesthetics with politics, and disdained disinterestedness for ethical activism.
She was interviewed for the film !Women Art Revolution.[8]
Selected honors and awards
Lippard holds nine honorary doctorates of fine arts,[9] of which some are listed below.
- 2015: Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art, College Art Association[10]
- 2013: Honorary doctorate, Otis College of Art and Design[11]
- 2013: Distinguished critic lecture, International Association of Art Critics, United States[12]
- 2012: Distinguished Feminist Award, College Art Association[13]
- 2010: Award for Curatorial Excellence, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College
- 2007: Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University)
- 1976: National Endowment for the Arts grant[7]
- 1975: Frank Jewett Mather Award for Criticism, College Art Association[14]
- 1972: National Endowment for the Arts grant
- 1968: Guggenheim Fellowship
Selected exhibitions
- Eccentric Abstraction, Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1966
- Rejective Art, organized by the American Federation of Arts, New York, traveled to three US venues in 1967-8
- Number 7, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 1969
- 557,087, Seattle World's Fair Pavilion, September 1969
- 955,000, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1970
- 2,972,453, Centro de Arte y Communicacion, Buenos Aires, 1971
- c.7,500, CalArts, Valencia, CA, traveling throughout US and Europe, 1973–1974
Selected publications
- Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West. New York: The New Press. 2014. ISBN 9781595586193
- 4,492,040. Los Angeles: New Documents. 2012. ISBN 9781927354001
- Weather Report. Boulder, C.O.: Boulder Museum of Contemporary Arts. 2007. ISBN 0979900700
- On the beaten track: tourism, art and place. New York: New Press. 1999. ISBN 1565844548
- The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society. New York: New Press. 1998. ISBN 1565842480
- The Pink Glass Swan. New York: New Press, 1995. ISBN 1565842138
- Mixed blessings: new art in a multicultural America. New York: Pantheon Books. 1990. ISBN 0394577590
- A different war: Vietnam in art. Bellingham, Wash: Whatcom Museum of History and Art. 1990. ISBN 0941104435
- Get the message?: a decade of art for social change. New York: E.P. Dutton. 1984 ISBN 0525480374
- Overlay: contemporary art and the art of prehistory. New York: Pantheon Books. 1983 ISBN 0394518128
- Eva Hesse. New York: New York University Press. 1976.
- From the center: feminist essays on women's art. New York: Dutton. 1976.ISBN 0525474277
- Six years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972; a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries. New York: Praeger. 1973. ISBN 0289703328
- Changing: essays in art criticism. New York: Dutton. 1971.ISBN 0525079424
- Surrealists on art. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1970. ISBN 0138780900
- Pop art. New York: Praeger. 1966.
- The Graphic Work of Philip Evergood. New York: Crown, 1966.
See also
References
- Biography at arthistorians.info
- "Pioneering Author, Activist, Critic, and Curator Lucy Lippard to Receive Honorary Degree". OTIS College of Art and Design. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
- Obrist, Hans Ulrich (2008). A Brief History of Curating. Zurich: JRP Ringier. ISBN 9783905829556.
- Lippard, Lucy R. (2009). "Curating by Numbers". Tate Papers. Issue 12.
- "Six Years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art"
- Bryan-Wilson, Julia (2009). Art Workers : Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 129.
- Finding Aid to the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, 1940s-2006, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 4 Nov 2013.
- Anon 2018
- "Lucy R. Lippard | The New Press". The New Press. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- Association, College Art. "Awards for Distinction | Programs | CAA". www.collegeart.org. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- "Honorary Degrees". Otis College of Art and Design. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- "Why Lucy Lippard Never Gets Writer's Block". Hyperallergic. 2013-10-31. Retrieved 2018-04-05.
- Association, College Art. "Awards for Distinction | Programs | CAA". www.collegeart.org. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- Association, College Art. "Awards for Distinction | Programs | CAA". www.collegeart.org. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- "Process of Attrition: AMARCORD:Number Shows" Archived 2014-01-09 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
- "From Conceptualism to Feminism." Afterall Book Review.
See also
- Anon (2018). "Artist, Curator & Critic Interviews". !Women Art Revolution - Spotlight at Stanford. Archived from the original on August 23, 2018. Retrieved August 23, 2018.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- "Biography – Lippard, Lucy R. (1937-): An article from: Contemporary Authors." HTML digital publication
- Parallaxis: fifty-five points to view : a conversation with Lucy R. Lippard and Rina Swentzell. Denver, CO : Western States Arts Federation, 1996.
- Bonin, Vincent. Materializing Six Years: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. ISBN 9780262018166
- Butler, Cornelia H. From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy R. Lippard's Numbers Shows, 1969-74. London: Afterall Books, 2012. ISBN 9783863351021
External links
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Lucy R. Lippard |
- "Finding Her Place" Author, Author, by Kennan Daniel, Phillips Academy Bulletin, Winter 2001
- Lucy R. Lippard Papers, circa 1940–1995, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
- Lucy R. Lippard papers: Images, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
- Works by or about Lucy R. Lippard in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Lucy Lippard 1974: An Interview
- Guggenheim Fellows for 1968
- Frank Jewett Mather Award for Criticism from the College Art Association