Walter Robinson (artist)

Walter Robinson
Robinson in New York State, 2012
Born1950 (age 73–74)
Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.
Other namesMike Robinson
Alma materColumbia University
Occupation(s)Painter, publisher, art curator and art writer

Walter Robinson (aka Mike Robinson, born 1950) is an American painter, publisher, art curator, and art writer, based in New York City.[1] He has been called a Neo-pop painter, as well as a member of the 1980s The Pictures Generation.[2][3] Robinson is the subject of the 632 page book A Kiss Before Dying: Walter Robinson – A Painter of Pictures and Arbiter of Critical Pleasures by Richard Milazzo published in 2021 with an Italian translation by Ginevra Quadrio Curzio.

Life and education

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Robinson was born in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, and was raised in Tulsa. He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University in 1968.[4] Subsequently, he graduated from the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1973.[5] He lived in SoHo in the 1970s and on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side in the 1980s and '90s,[6] and currently lives uptown with a studio in Long Island City in Queens.

Painting career

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Robinson is a postmodern painter whose work features painterly images taken from covers of romance novel paperbacks as well as still lifes of cheeseburgers, French fries, and beer, and pharmaceutical products such as aspirin and nasal spray.[7] He also made and exhibited large-scale spin paintings in the mid-1980s, in advance of his colleague Damien Hirst.[8]

A 2014 touring exhibition of Robinson's paintings included more than 90 works dating from 1979 to 2014. It premiered at the University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, and subsequently appeared in Philadelphia at the Moore College of Art.[9] The show's final stop was at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York City in September 2016.[10]

Robinson's works have been exhibited at several New York galleries since the 1980s, including Semaphore Gallery[11] and Metro Pictures Gallery.[12] An exhibition of his paintings, paired with a poem by Charles Bukowski, "There's a Bluebird in My Heart", was on view in Spring 2016 at the Owen James Gallery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.[13]

Art criticism and other activities

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Robinson began writing about art in the 1970s, when he co-founded with Edit DeAk the art zine Art-Rite[14][15] in New York's SoHo art district.[16]

Robinson subsequently served as news editor of Art in America magazine (1980–96) and founding editor of Artnet magazine (1996–2012).[17] In 2013–14, he was a columnist for Artspace.com, where his seminal essay on "Zombie Formalism" appeared.[18] He also served as art editor of the East Village Eye in the early 1980s.[19]

Robinson was also active in Collaborative Projects (aka Colab) in the early 1980s,[20] acting as president for a short time and participating in The Times Square Show.[21]

In the 1990s, he was a correspondent for GalleryBeat TV, a public-access television show.[22]

References

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  1. ^ Hager, Steve (1986). Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene. St. Matins Press. p. 146.
  2. ^ Kuspit, Donald (Summer 2013). "Walter Robinson, Dorian Grey Gallery". Artforum International: 360.
  3. ^ Schmerler, Sarah (October 9, 2014). "Walter Robinson at Lynch Tham". Art in America.
  4. ^ Walter Robinson
  5. ^ "Walter Robinson". Artspace.
  6. ^ Robinson, Walter (February 7, 2013). "Kicked Out of 1993". Observer.com.
  7. ^ Barry Blinderman, ed. (2016). Walter Robinson: Paintings and Other Indulgences. University Galleries of Illinois State University. p. 144.
  8. ^ Grabner, Michelle (March 2015). "Walter Robinson, University Galleries of Illinois State University". Artforum International. p. 286.
  9. ^ Boucher, Brian (January 25, 2016). "Walter Robinson's First Solo Museum Survey Opens in Philadelphia". Artnet News.
  10. ^ Schjeldahl, Peter (September 26, 2016). "Reality Principle". The New Yorker. p. 10.
  11. ^ Upshaw, Regan (February 1985). "Walter Robinson at Semaphore". Art in America.
  12. ^ Adams, Brooks (May 1982). "Walter Robinson at Metro Pictures New York". Art in America. pp. 144–145.
  13. ^ "Charles Bukowski / Walter Robinson", Owen James Gallery.
  14. ^ Moore, Alan W. (2022). "Art Worker: Doing Time in the New York Art World". Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press: 29, 56, 69, 75, 80, 89, 104–5, 109, 111.
  15. ^ Boch, Richard (2017). The Mudd Club. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House. p. 268. ISBN 978-1-62731-051-2. OCLC 972429558.
  16. ^ Frankel, David (January 2003). "The Rite Stuff: Art-Rite". Artforum International.
  17. ^ Russeth, Andrew (January 24, 2012). "Art Net: The Life and Times of Walter Robinson". Observer.com.
  18. ^ Robinson, Walter (April 3, 2014). "Flipping and the Rise of Zombie Formalism". Artspace Magazine.
  19. ^ Beauchesne, Claudia Eve. "East Village Eye". Tunica Studio Magazine. No. 4.
  20. ^ Max Schumann, ed. (2015). A Book about Colab (and Related Activities). Printed Matter, Inc.
  21. ^ Moore, Alan W. (2022). "Art Worker: Doing Time in the New York Art World". Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press: 29, 56, 69, 75, 80, 89, 104–05, 109, 111.
  22. ^ Press, Joy (May 2, 2008). "I Dated Cindy Sherman". Salon.com.

Further reading

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  • McCormick, Carlo, & Walter Robinson, "Slouching Toward Avenue D", Art in America, 1982.
  • Moore, Alan W. and Marc Miller, eds. ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery New York: ABC No Rio with Collaborative Projects, 1985.
  • McCormick, Carlo, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, Princeton University Press, 2006.
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