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Lucy R. Lippard reflects on a life of activism and art
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Internationally-known art writer, curator and longtime Galisteo resident, Lucy R. Lippard, 88, donated over 500 artworks, artist books and ephemera to the New Mexico Museum of Art. Many of them are currently on view at Vladem Contemporary in the exhibition, “Lucy R. Lippard: Notes from the Radical Whirlwind,” curated by Alexandra Terry.
Lippard, who is famously precise with her language, won’t call the artworks a collection, which implies intentionality, since most of them were gifts from her artist friends.
“Not an archive or a collection, just a bunch of art,” she said in an email interview. “When it was first shown as ‘Sniper’s Nest’ (a 1996 touring exhibition of her art, first presented at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies), it was ‘art that has lived with Lucy Lippard.’”
Over the course of a six-decade career, Lippard has curated at least 50 exhibitions and authored 30 books and hundreds of articles, including now-canonical writings on conceptual art, feminist art and socially engaged art.
Lippard’s watershed 1968 essay, “The Dematerialization of Art,” coauthored with John Chandler, was one of the first major statements on conceptual art, signaling a shift in artworld discourse away from material objects and toward ideas. Hrag Vartanian, the editor-in-chief of Hyperallergic, has called Lippard “one of the voices who’s truly defined contemporary art criticism.”
In the early days, Lippard faced resistance from male editors who, among other things, discouraged her from writing about women.
“From 1970, when I became a raving feminist, I’d already been publishing in the art magazines about all kinds of things, especially minimal and conceptual art, but editors didn’t want to become feminist platforms and if I didn’t self-censor I got edited,” Lippard said. “I suggested to one (sympathetic) editor that I write a series of shortish pieces introducing women artists and he called them ‘featurettes.’ It never happened. By the time we started (the magazine) Heresies (first issue was Jan. 1977), I’d had it, and was more or less let loose. Everyone knew I was a feminist, but a more hospitable venue meant I could be a feminist writer.”
Although frequently labeled a critic, Lippard dislikes the term, preferring “art writer.”
“Early on, I stopped writing about things I don’t like,” she said. “I’m an advocate, not an adversary, and I save my nastiest criticism for capitalism.”
Such an approach helped Lippard maintain close relationships with the artists she wrote about, who often gave her artworks as signs of their appreciation.
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With limited wall space or places to display the work, Lippard said, “they were often just stuck under beds.”
“It’s been years since I saw most of these works,” she said. “I was surprised that I had some of them.”
Although Lippard said she’s not a sentimental person, walking through the Vladem exhibition did bring back memories.
“I didn’t have any heavy emotional moments in the show except missing so many of the artists I was closest to, who are dead: (Robert) Ryman, (Eva) Hesse, (Sol) LeWitt, (Werner) Buser, (June) Leaf, (Ana) Mendieta, (Ellen) Lanyon, (Leon) Golub, (Nancy) Spero, (Rudolf) Baranik, (May) Stevens, and more. Plus others I’ve lost track of,” Lippard said. “And all the women around my age who are belatedly getting recognized in their 80s or 90s or after death.”
The exhibition features a veritable who’s-who of famous conceptual and feminist artists, alongside lesser known figures.
“A lot of the artists deserved to be better known, among them New Mexico photographer Caroline Hinkley, political satirist Jerry Kearns, Nuyorican activist Juan Sánchez, Chicana photo-collagist Kathy Vargas (and) abstract painter Kes Zapkus,” Lippard said. “And all the Native artists — some of whom I wrote about decades ago. The artworld, MoMA, et al., are finally getting around to acknowledging the importance of Indigenous art. Better late than never.”
Lippard’s seemingly preternatural ability to stay ahead of artworld trends has amazed some observers, but she insists there’s nothing mysterious about it.
“People would ask where I ‘found’ certain artists, especially of color, or ask how I seemed to know what was happening before it hit the galleries and media,” Lippard said. “My answer is always: I’m in the studios! Duh.”
When it came to feminist art and activism, Lippard was not only an advocate but an active participant. She was part of the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists, which engaged in a series of creative actions against the Whitney Museum in 1970, calling attention to the museum’s underrepresentation of women artists and artists of color. Although these actions did not result in immediate changes at the museum, they inspired subsequent works of protest art and institutional critique, including those of the Guerrilla Girls, who formed in 1985.
“We never considered Ad Hoc anything but activism, not ‘institutional critique,’ very theoretical, which came later, and certainly not performance art,” Lippard said. “The four of us initial organizers — Brenda Miller, Poppy Johnson, Faith Ringgold and me — were in the Art Workers Coalition, where we were preceded by an even more militant group called WAR (Women Artists in Revolution). The left, and anti-war actions, were our models or just our principle cultural context. Pests, organized by Howardena Pindell and other women of color, was another group working in the streets in the mid-’80s.”
Reflecting on what these groups accomplished, Lippard said, “We succeeded in upping the numbers and bringing the issue (of underrepresentation) to light.”
Despite this, the artworld is a long way from achieving parity.
“Years later, even after the Guerrilla Girls, Micol Hebron has shown in her Gallery Tally Project that the numbers haven’t changed much in decades,” Lippard said.
In recent years, Lippard has been researching and thinking about public monuments and, more broadly, the role that art plays in keeping history alive. She hopes to explore these ideas in a new book, whose working title is “The Burden of Memory.”
“‘The Burden of Memory’ is still in utero, but it’s about artists working against the erasure of history, and not just monuments,” Lippard said. “At the moment, thanks to (President Donald) Trump, it’s just a rant.”
One controversial monument she has given a lot of thought to is the Soldiers’ Monument, an obelisk that stood in Santa Fe Plaza from its dedication in 1868 until it was toppled by protesters in 2020.
“I have a gigantic file on the Soldier’s Monument with all the suggestions (for replacing it) from fountains to gardens to sculptures to ruins,” Lippard said. “Whatever replaces it will have to be the product of a real down and dirty cross-cultural dialogue. We’ll see what the new mayor has to say.”
A lifetime in art and activism has led Lippard to the conviction that art can change society, but not on its own.
“I’ve always said that art alone, no matter how powerful, lacks broad access. But with the right allies — activist, environmental, cross-cultural groups — it can be a contender by jolting conventional thinking,” Lippard said. “Depends on the context in which the work is experienced, preferably the public.”
She is presently working on a collaborative project to address threats to freedom through art.
“A group of us are working now on an Impact Art Lab to see what we can do along those lines for the national Fall of Freedom project, Nov. 21–22,” Lippard said.
Fall of Freedom is a nationwide artist- and writer-led initiative to unite the arts community “in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation,” according to its website, falloffreedom.com.
“It makes sense to ask: What do we want to say? How do we want to say it? Who’s it for?” Lippard said.
