The_Art_Newspaper_-_November_2016

The Whitney Museum of American Art hosted

a book launch on 10 October for David Salle’s

How to See, a “trenchant and light-on-its-feet

collection of critical essays and less-targeted

musings about art, artists, fame, and, if you read it

closely enough, what it’s like to have been David

Salle for all these years”, in New York magazine’s

estimation. The evening began with Salle holding

court onstage, ielding prompts from associate

curator Jane Panetta. Among the revelations:

Fairield Porter, the painter and critic, was always

Salle’s model for writing. “There’s a reason

why few artists have taken up the job,” he said.

“Writing just takes enormous amounts

of time. It’s a lot of time out of

the studio. So much so that

Per Skarstedt, my dealer,

has politely suggested

that maybe I don’t

have to do it

any more.”

David sallies forth


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“THE DAYS OF THIS SOCIETY IS NUMBERED”, screamed a well-known text

work by Rirkrit Tiravanija over the watch party for the irst presidential debate

at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise on 26 September. Around 100 people basked

in the blue glow of Hillary Clinton’s victory in the irst televised debate,

surrounded by political works from Christopher Knowles, Rob Pruitt, Deborah

Kass, John Giorno and Dread Scott. The party was organised by the artist

Jonathan Horowitz. “Something really ominous is going on in the country right

now and it’s hard to think about art,”

he told us. “But if you’re an artist, it’s

important to think about art and how

it might relate to what’s going on. I

wanted to provide a space for that

to happen.” Horowitz also provided

Coke and Pepsi, a nod perhaps to

the problems inherent in a two-party

system, but mostly a reference to his

soda painting series, along with vegan

hot dogs. There was also Budweiser

and PBR for those who needed

something stronger.

Horowitz throws end-of-the-world party

The painter and

writer David Salle

DAN ABOUT TOWN

New York: Dan Duray

Just when you thought the US presidential

election’s horrible sexual undercurrents were all

reserved for women: on 8 October, conservative

agitator and photographer Lucian Wintrich

opened a show at a pop-up space in Manhattan

titled Daddy Will Save Us. The bulk of the works

are in Wintrich’s Twinks for Trump series and

feature hairless young men posing with symbols of

Republicanism. Think Ryan McGinley but without

any sense of balance, colour depth, technical

acuity, texture, lighting, warmth, joie de vivre,

basic humanity and sexiness, and add Make

America Great Again hats. The show was originally

scheduled to take place in Williamsburg’s the

Boiler until the gallery cancelled the show, when it

realised the organisers were serious.

Daddy issues

Not that great: a photo from Lucian

Wintrich’s 2016 series Twinks for Trump

The Luxembourg & Dayan gallery kicked o its show Salvatore Scarpitta 1956-

64 on 13 October with a VIP preview that included a toast by Julian Schnabel.

The ilm-maker and painter said that the textural paintings by his friend, who

died in 2007, needed to be seen, if only for their interplay with contemporary

works by Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly and Lucio Fontana. “It takes time to see

someone’s work,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t get to see it until they die.

I was reading this book that said artists don’t get paid weekly, they don’t get

paid monthly—they get paid posthumously.” Schnabel and Scarpitta were so

close that it is rumoured that

Schnabel named his son Vito

after Scarpitta’s dog. “No, that’s

not true,” Schnabel said after

the speech. “Vito is named after

Vito Corleone.” Schnabel seems

to be a big fan of Marlon Brando,

who played the title role of the

head of the Corleone clan in the

movie The Godfather. He went

on to add that his daughter

Stella was named after Brando’s

famous bellow as Stanley of

his onscreen wife’s name in A

Streetcar Named Desire.

A Brando for every

naming occasion

A partygoer in a Donald Trump

mask takes a break

Brando as Stanley Kowalski

in A Streetcar Named Desire

SCORSESE: BFA/ZACH HILTY; COURTESY OF THE NEW MUSEUM. SALLE: ROBERT

WRIGHT; COURTESY OF W. W. NORTON & COMPANY. WINTRICH: COURT

ESY OF LUCIAN WINTRICH. BRANDO: WARNER BROS/PHOTOFEST; © WARNER BROS

QUOTE OF

THE MONTH

“Something really

ominous is going on

in the country right

now and it’s hard

to think about art”

Jonathan Horowitz at his election

watch party in New York

Marty and Fran can take on any

topic—but not photography

There’s no mistaking ilm director Martin Scorsese and writer Fran Lebowitz

THE ART NEWSPAPER SECTION 2 Number 284, November 2016 45

The New Museum hosted a discussion between the ilm director Martin Scorsese and the

writer and wit Fran Lebowitz on 27 September, as part of its Stuart Regen Visionaries series of

talks. The two are old-school New Yorkers, and old friends—Lebowitz was the subject of a 2010

documentary directed by Scorsese. While it was natural for her, as the honouree, to do most

of the talking, this also just happens to be the way things go with Lebowitz, which Scorsese

seemed to understand. You don’t interview her so much as give her a topic and get out of the

way. The subject matter ranged from Trump to tourists to New York’s mayor. During the Q&A at

the end, someone asked: “Fran, could you talk a little bit about your photography?”

“Boy, are you in the wrong place!” she replied. “I am not Annie Leibovitz. I’m Fran Lebowitz.

Annie’s the photographer.” Everyone laughed awkwardly. “That’s okay, but,” she paused to look

at her watch in awe, “you’ve been here a really long time.” And the one-liners didn’t end there.

She deadpanned: “Sometimes this happens to me on the street and they say, ‘But you look just

like her!’ And I say, ‘Only to anti-Semites.’ But hey,” she added, thumbing over to Scorsese, “if you

want to ask him about directing The Godfather later...”