We would like to congratulate professor Douglas Crimp from the Art and Art History Department for the recent publication of his memoir Before Pictures (Dancing Foxes Press, 2016).
“Before Pictures tells the story of Crimp’s life as a young gay man and art critic in New York City during the late 1960s through the turbulent 1970s. Crimp participated in all of what made the city so stimulating in that vibrant decade. The details of his professional and personal life are interwoven with the particularly rich history of New York City at that time, producing a vivid portrait of both the critic and his adopted city. Part autobiography and part cultural history, Before Pictures is a courageous account of an exceptional period in both Crimp’s life and the life of New York City. At the same time, it offers a deeply personal and engaging point of entry into important issues in contemporary art.” (via Dancing Foxes Press)
“Through the book I weave together stories of the two cultures that were most important in my life at the time —gay liberation and the art that came to be called post modernist—in the hopes that I can unsettle the ways theses two worlds are usually understood,” said Crimp.
Douglas Crimp is a key figure in the development of postmodern theory. He is well known for his the influential exhibition Pictures that he curate
d in 1977 at the Artists Space, including work by Sherrie Levine, Philip Smith, Jack Goldstein, Robert Longo, and Troy Brauntuch. Crimp worked as a curatorial assistant at the Guggenheim Museum and as an art critic, writing for ArtNews and Art International. In 1977, he became the managing editor, and later co-editor, of the influential journal October, being a central figure until he left in 1990. In 1992 he began teaching in the Visual and Cultural Studies Program at the Art and Art History Department where he was appointed the Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History in 2003.
Crimp is the author of On the Museum’s Ruins (MIT Press, 1993), Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics (MIT Press, 2002), and “Our Kind of Movie”: The Films of Andy Warhol. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.
SEPTEMBER
Thursday, September 29, 6:00 – 8:00 pm:
A conversation between Zoe Leonard and Douglas Crimp
OCTOBER
Thursday, October 6, 5:00 pm
Reading and conversation with Anthony Petro, Erin Murphy, Carrie Preston, and Keith Vincent, Gregory Williams
Boston University, link
Thursday, October 18, 7:00pm
Reading, 192 Books, NYC, link.
Thursday, October 20, 7:30 pm
Reading and conversation with Jacquelyn McCroskey
Hammer Museum, UCLA, link.
Sunday, October 23, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Reading and conversation with Claudia La Rocco
The Lab, San Francisco, link.
Tuesday, October 25, 7:00 – 9:00 pm.
Reading and conversation with Tina Takemoto
California College of the Arts, San Francisco, link.
Wednesday, October 26, 5:00 pm.
Reading an conversation with Julia Bryan-Wilson
UC Berkeley, link.
Thursday, October 27, 6:00 – 7:30 pm.
Reading and conversation with Richard Meyer
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, link.
NOVEMBER
Tuesday, November 1, 5:00 pm
Lecture on Merce Cunningham
Northwestern University. Details TBD.
Wednesday, November 2, 6:00 – 7:15 pm
Lecture on Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
Department of Visual Arts, University of Chicago, link.
Thursday, November 3, 6:00 pm
Reading and conversation with Gregg Bordowitz
Art Institute of Chicago, details TBD.
Sunday, November 6
Reading
Marfa Book Company, Marfa, TX, Details TBD
Friday, November 11, 6:30 pm
Lecture on Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
School of Art, Blaffer Art Museum, and Creative Writing Program, University of Houston, link.
Saturday, November 12, 6:30 pm
Reading and conversation with Dean Daderko
Contemporary Art Museum Houston, details TBD.
Monday, November 14
Reading and conversation with Ann Cvetkovich
University of Texas, Austin, details TBD, link.
Friday, November 18, 7:00 pm
Screening of Agnes Martin’s Gabriel (1976, 16mm transferred to digital video, color, sound, 78 min) and conversation with Karen Redrobe.
ICA Philadelphia (at International House), link.
Monday, November 21, 7pm
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, NY link.
DECEMBER
Thursday, December 8, 7:00pm
Reading
Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, link.
January
Sunday, January 8
Reading and conversation with Lynne Cooke
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Details TBD.
*Signed copies will be available at all events. The book can also be ordered at www.dfpress.us. Special price for orders received before October 1: $30
