The Hat Line

In 1977 and 1978, Public Access Poetry  (produced by Poetry Project  Greg Masters, Gary Lenhart, David Herz, Didi Susan Dubelyew, Daniel Krakauer, Bob Rosenthal and Rochelle Kraut, PAP programs) featured half-hour readings by a wide range of poets and performers . Forty-six fragile open-reel videotapes of these shows were preserved and, in 2009, were donated to the Poetry Project which has collaborated with PennSound at the University of Pennsylvania to create an online archive of these rarely seen readings.

On September 15, 1977, Robert Kushner and Ed Friedman performed "New York Hat Line."
Click here  to link to Penn Sound's Poetry Project page and then scroll down.  "New York Hat Line" is the 5th film clip.

When you're done watching Robert Kushner and Ed Friedman, take  a moment and watch the others. It's a fantastic archive of  some of  New York's  'downtown'  poets and performers of the 70s -- live.

In 1979, "New York Hat Line" by Robert Kushner with text by Ed Friedman was published.

Rush Interactive: Amy Goldin

Rush Interactive:
Amy Goldin: Art in a Hairshirt
Hosted by Michael Rush

Originally aired on Monday, May 7th, 2012

Though her star shone only briefly (she wrote from 1964 until her death in 1978), Amy Goldin made several original contributions to post-war art criticism, including admitting the decorative arts into larger painting-dominated criticism. Artist and protege of Goldin, Robert Kushner and critic and Pratt professor Dominique Nahas join host Michael Rush on this special show on Goldin and the state of art criticism today.

At the time of this conversation, Hard Press Editions had just released the first-ever collection of essays by Goldin. Over thirty essays taken from the pages of Artnews, Artforum, Art Journal, New American Review, International Journal for Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Art in America and her personal journals during the 60s and 70s, have been selected by Robert Kushner and relayed with complementary accounts from prominent art world writers.

Book Launch Party for 'Amy Goldin: Art in a Hairshirt'

Caroyln Lanchner, Irving and Lucy Sandler and Robert Berlind with Robert Kushner (right) at DC Moore Gallery.

Thursday, February 16, 2012 was the official book launch for Amy Goldin: Art in a Hairshirt, Art Criticism 1964-1978 (Hard Press Editions). DC Moore Gallery kindly sponsored this event. Many of the contributing critics attended: Elizabeth Baker, Emna Zghal, Irving Sandler and Max Kozloff.  Friends and family. And most important, a significant group of artists, both young and old, already interested in Amy Goldin's writings, and wanting to be able to read more. I enjoyed signing books, seeing them go out into the world. But I was not the author, only the vehicle for this book coming to realization. Amazing anecdote of the evening:  Herb Bronstein had been a friend of Amy's since the 1940s and gave me two interviews just before he died which helped me construct her early chronology. When I visited Herb at his apartment, I had admired a rather bizarre object which he owned. That evening of the book party, remembering Herb's delight that I had recognized what it was,  his executor presented this objet d'art to me: an antique Papuan koteka*.  I wonder whether those exact circumstances have ever been repeated at a book launch party.

*What's a koteka? Go look it up!