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Gregory Battcock

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Gregory Battcock (1937-1980) was an American art historian, art critic, and painter from New York City who wrote a series of Dutton paperbacks that anthologized critical writings on new art tendencies in contemporary art, such as Minimalism, Conceptual Art,[1] Video Art,[2]and Super Realism.[3] His first anthology, The New Art, was published in 1966 and revised in 1973.[4] Idea Art: A Critical Anthology, about conceptual art, was his most impactful book.[5]

Life and career

Battcock attended Michigan State University, the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, and Hunter College. He earned his Ph.D. from New York University in 1978 with a dissertation titled Constructivism and Minimal Art: Some Aesthetic, Theoretical and Critical Correlations.

He wrote frequently for the art magazines Art & Artists and Domus.[6] Battcock taught fine art at William Paterson College [7] and was art critic for the New York Free Press. In the late 1960s and early-’70s, Battcock contributed columns on art and life to tabloids such as Gay and the New York Review of Sex.

He was editor-in-chief of Arts Magazine (1973-1975). In 1977 he co-published the tabloid Trylon & Perisphere with Ron Whyte that included satiricart criticism and soft-core eroticism.[3] He appeared in the Andy Warhol films Eating Too Fast, Horse, and Batman Dracula.

Battcock was murdered in Puerto Rico on December 25, 1980.[6][8]

Books

  • Idea Art: A Critical Anthology
  • Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology
  • The New Art: A Critical Anthology
  • The New American Cinema. A Critical Anthology
  • Breaking the Sound Barrier: A Critical Anthology of the New Music
  • New Artists Video
  • Super Realism
  • Why Art: Casual Notes on the Aesthetics of the Immediate Past
  • New Ideas in Art Education

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” October 55 (Winter 1990): 105–43
  2. ^ [1] Gregory Battcock by Douglas Davis at Artforum APRIL 1981 VOL. 19, NO.8
  3. ^ a b [2] TRANSFORMER: GREGORY BATTCOCK By David Joselit at Artforum
  4. ^ David Weinberg, “Blood of a Critic: Gregory Battcock’s Rise to Stardom and Fall from Grace,” Soho News, October 13, 1981
  5. ^ The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 33, Issue 1, Autumn 1974, Pages 109–111, https://doi.org/10.2307/42896, 01 September 1974
  6. ^ a b [3] Gregory Battcock papers, 1952-circa 1980
  7. ^ Russell, John (January 16, 1981). "ART PEOPLE; The ride-by subway mural". New York Times. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  8. ^ "Police have no clues in slaying of critic - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  • [4] Gregory Battcock papers, 1952-circa 1980