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Epiphany: Or How I Stumbled Unawares Into the Strange World of Contemporary Art

Here's how it was. This was way back in theprinciple as a writer is that old adage: How
very early seventies. I had recently arriveddo I know what I think 'til I see what I say.
in Los Angeles from Iowa, where I had beenI couldn't begin to sort out my ideas and
completing a doctoral program and working infeelings  until  I  had  them  down in words.
the Writers' Workshop in Iowa City. I was a
poet. I had never taken much interest inSo I sat down and began to write. And I
art-though I was educated enough, of course,wrote and wrote. Judging prose, in those
to be aware of "modern" artists like Picassodays, to be a little bit beneath a man whose
and Matisse. I had even, at my boardinglofty calling was to be a poet, I wrote it
school in England, enlarged a blue Matisseall as a poem, and the poem turned out to be
flower cutout to reproduce as a mural on mysome thirty pages long. Evidently I found
study wall-to the considerable consternationthat I had quite a lot to say, and much of it
of  my  "housemaster".had to do with the growing realization that
this "mess" of an art show curiously
But though I had lived in London for threeresembled how I felt about my life-and how I
years in my early twenties, I had notmanaged  it-when  I  was  seven  years  old.
stumbled across anything that would qualify
as "contemporary art." Then at theMy life was all a difficult, impenetrable
University of Iowa, the Art Department was,mystery. Nothing was as tidy as it was
to my knowledge, mostly traditional, undersupposed to be, not even my clothes. Nothing
the firm hand of the lithography masterever fit quite right. I was clumsy,
Mauricio  Lasansky.inelegant. I used to spill ink on the desk
and smudge my fingers, and then the exercise
Then... Los Angeles! The shock of the new!books  in  which  I  had to do my arithmetic.
My eyes were opened, first, by my soon-to-be
wife, Ellie Blankfort-she of the EllieIt was the struggle between the unruly,
Blankfort Gallery fame, during those years inrebellious reality of the inner self and the
the very early seventies. Soon after we met,discipline that others want to impose on it
she landed a job running the Art Rentalfrom without-the classic struggle for
Gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum, andindividual freedom in the face of despised
she was meeting the younger set of artistsand feared authority. Eventually, it proved
she was soon to represent in her gallery. I,to be a losing battle for the child and a
the poet, observed nervously from thevictory for the teachers. Inky fingers and
sidelines, somewhat befuddled by the strangeall, I was forced into submission to the
things  some  of  these  artists  were doing.rules.
I was not deeply offended, however, until theWHEN I WAS A SMALL BOY. This art was talking
day we went out to see an exhibition at theabout me! No wonder I was so angry and
Orlando Gallery in the San Fernando Valley.uncomfortable!
I arrived there to find hand-made, primitive
axes protruding from the walls; booksLater, when the writing was done. I met the
mutilated with cuts and slashes, their pagesoffending artist, Gary Lloyd. (Gary, where
stuck together with unidentifiable goo;are you these days?) He loved the poem I'd
mysterious-but definitely unpleasant-stuffwritten, and proposed our collaboration on a
growing in mason jars; and Vaseline smearedbook. We made it-a cumbersome volume with a
unceremoniously on the white walls of thehatchet handles for a spine, a battered
gallery.aluminum cover, and pages rendered illegible
by layers of mesh and grease-proof paper, and
And then there was an inscription somewheresmears of Vaseline. We spent hours in Gary's
in bold, childish lettering: WHEN I WAS ACulver City studio putting this thing
SMALL  BOY,  BOB  WENT  HOME.together. We even sold some copies to
respectable collectors. The County Museum
That was it. I was appalled. Appalled thathas  a  copy.
someone could create this kind of hideous
mess and call it art. I went home angry toSo there you go. This was the great
have wasted my precious (poet's!) time onepiphany, for me, the initiation into the
such  frivolity.world of contemporary art. It came about
through anger and indignation, a reaction so
And yet I could not get it out of my mind.strong that I was unable to ignore it. It
To my distinct annoyance, the images keptcame about because I had the intuitive wisdom
playing around in my head, refusingto listen to that contrarian voice and heed
stubbornly to leave. The indignationits challenge. In the months and years that
continued to rile. So I did what any writerfollowed, I continued making my first few
does, I assume, when confronted with thetentative steps into writing about art. I
unknown:  I  started  to  write  about  it.even discovered that prose could prove a
satisfying medium. I began to write pieces
At the risk of irritating those who've heardfor Artweek, first, then for Art in America,
me say it a hundred times before, my guidingArtforum... I had found a calling.



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