Art stories in the New Haven Advocate

I'm doing some freelance writing on visual arts again for the New Haven Advocate. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an exhibit at Yale's Beinecke Rare Books Library on the collision of post-World War II avant-garde art and radical politics in "The Revolution Is Curated:"

Were the revolutions of the 1960s — and 1968 in particular — just a dream (or nightmare, if you were part of the ruling class)? Based on evidence presented in a fascinating show at the Beinecke Library, the revolutions were both real and surreal.

The Postwar Avant-Garde and the Culture of Protest, 1945 to 1968 and Beyond tracks the influence of a generation of artistic rebels in Europe. These artists/activists sought not just to change art but to change life.

According to curator Kevin Repp, 2008 — the 40th anniversary of 1968, when the globe convulsed with multiple upheavals — would have been the ideal year to mount the show. But Beinecke was undergoing renovations at the time.

Meanwhile, the collection has been further fleshed out. The library purchased more than 240 posters produced during the May 1968 uprising in France when students occupied the universities and some 10 million workers went on strike.

"Rather than focus solely on 1968, the focus here is to put 1968 into the larger story," Repp says.

You can read more here.

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In the issue of the paper out today you'll find "The Gods Must Be Freaky," an article on Bill Saunders' (aka Volonté Morceaux) show at Hull's Gallery at One Whitney.

At the opening of Forces de Nature, Bill Saunders, aka Volonté Morceaux, told me his paintings were informed by mythology and postmodern fiction.

I'll admit it: I thought he was just tarting up already fine work with pseudo-intellectual bullshit. But a couple of trips back to Hull's Gallery at 1 Whitney Ave. — and further discussions about the paintings with Saunders and gallery director Barbara Hawes — changed my mind.

This is farce, yes, but serious farce.

Read more. There will be a second artists' reception for this show—this time under Saunders' real name—tomorrow, Thurs., Dec. 3, from 5—8 p.m. All New Haven's freaks will be there.