135. BLINKY PALERMO
The west side of Manhattan
became my home. It was
pretty easy. It was also, at
that time, one of the
dag-nastiest sections to
find one's self in. Now,
mind you, I didn't 'live'
there. I managed to stay
in a few other places;
but that was, for all other
intents and purposes,
where I dwelt. There was
a time (and I've written
of this too) when there was
an inner contest in me for
whether the east-side, (fish)
or the west-side, (meat),
would win out. There was
a decent enough little art
district going on by
Coenties Slip that I
could have favored. The
funny thing about the art
world right then was how
it was disjointed, or
becoming disjointed.
The New York
Studio School, at, w8th
represented only the,
for the most part, already
'traditionalized' painting
school of older-line NY
Abstract Expressionists,
all already having achieved
certain status and individual
fame, among themselves
and in the greater world.
People like Philip Guston,
Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock,
and Wilhem DeKooning,
just naming a few. They'd
already gone big-time, hit
the mark, and had been
taken up with all that came
with it. Tenth Street galleries,
Tanager Gallery, etc. It was
like The Armory Show
every week. Down at
Coenties, an entire other
group of (younger) artists
were underway - within
the same 'art tradition'
and knowledge, except
they were growing
something entirely
different, and had their
own crowd and showings.
And network. Working in
the great loft spaces of what
once had been sail-makers
and maritime constructs, (all
gone now, wiped out), they
reveled in the grand, old
spaces of the old rope lofts
and riggers, and came up
with work prefiguring
what became Pop Art,
Minimalism - people
such as Ellsworth Kelly,
Jasper Johns, Robert
Rauschenberg, Agnes
Martin, Robert Indiana.
More to list, but I won't.
These were exciting times,
and lots of things were
happening, seemed
happening, everywhere
- even 'Happenings', by
which name oddball, staged
effects and events went on.
The schools of the various
art movements co-existed,
stayed apart, or not, and
were able to conjoin with
other as needed, but every
spur went its own way -
was a kind of precious
moment, those years,
right up through abut '68,
with so much excitement
and ferment everywhere.
Art. Music. The two together
and the two apart. It was
almost as if, for the moment
of a few years, even
writing took a back seat.
The writers of that period
themselves had hit a slump.
I went to Coenties, but I could
never warm up - they were
too modern, too aware and
fancied up, sort of, anyway.
Their ways were precise and
cold, clinical and concise.
All that Agnes Martin stuff,
nice, but harsh to me. Same
with Ellsworth Kelly. You
can go up to DIA Beacon
now and see all that stuff
on display. I never got their
language. It never got
through to me or my
own thinking. I needed
the old. The last thing I'd
ever want was their
lightness and happiness
- that was how I felt
about it all anyway. Like
liking a smudge more
than a ruled line. They
were cool, but I needed
darkness and heat; I
needed that churning
existential angst of the
1940's, and it was all
still there in these
older guys - male and
female - artists I
ended up loving. That
was New York City to
me, as I sought it and
found it. The rest was a
more-modern fluff I was
just never interested in.
I needed a Joseph Cornell,
an Albert Pinkham Ryder,
to their Red Grooms and
Blinky Palermo.
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