IN MEMORIUM: Big-Time Art Critic (An Unpublished Peter Schjeldahl Interview)

Peter Schjeldahl, 2007. Image by Photo: Alex Remnick, courtesy Rain Noe / Core 77.

IN MEMORIUM
Big-Time Art Critic
(An Unpublished Peter Schjeldahl Interview)

By Michael Workman

Peter Schjeldahl, who I was saddened to read passed away this week at the age of 80, was a mentor and guiding light for me as a young writer and critic, and literally the reason I decided to have children. Let me explain: starting out in Chicago, I first met Schjeldahl early in my career, then as now indistinguishable from his role (as he liked to repeatedly point out, as the “big time”) New Yorker art critic. He had just been announced as the juror who would select the sculpture for a now-defunct program called Navy Pier Walk (back when organizations actually hired people knowledgeable in art for their public art programs). Founded by artists Michael Dunbar and Terrence Karpowicz, I’d met him through the Pier Walk program’s then-director Joseph Tabet, who’d hired me to write the catalog essay for the sculpture show’s 2004 edition.

After meeting Schjeldahl, an effusively charming, constantly cigarette-smoking figure, I felt an immediate kinship with him as a fellow writer — albeit one who’d ascended to some sort of establishment position, whereas I had only just starting out. I immediately felt taken me under his wing, with our shared love of writing the anchor. We had people in common too, including local powerhouse art collectors the Manilows for example. Lew Manilow, a lifelong supporter of the newly-founded MCA Chicago, he let me know, sent their kids to summer with Peter and his wife in New York, and vice-versa.

There was also a long list of writers we both admired, and we shared a winking sensibility about what good writing was in general. So it was we spent a lot of time talking over dinners, correspondence, visits to New York and Chicago, ostensibly to work on the show – which I offered copious suggestions for, and which we spent countless hours reviewing and kibitzing over, whittling down the proposed artists (this one was busy being a heroin addict, that one wouldn’t be appropriate to the family entertainment funhouse that is Navy Pier, etc.).

But to my initial point: my marriage at the time was just starting to land on the usual rocks, and over dinner one night I lamented the fact we’d likely end up separating. “Well, if you have kids, you’ll always be together,” he suggested, I think light-heartedly — but he was right. Our love for our son inspired a co-parenting relationship that became the lifeline when much else was no longer there to rely on.

From then on, whenever I visited New York, I’d drop him a line, and if he wasn’t cooling his heels upstate, we’d meet up at a local diner for a coffee, slice of cheesecake and conversation about art, writing, life. I really only disagreed with him on one point – that the Renaissance was the greatest period and model in history for art (my view being that dictatorships need not be necessary to make for the clearest artistic mandate). Regardless, we’d always get on as usual, discussing our inexhaustible list of favorite topics: art, relationships, movies – he loved foreign films, and my then-wife and I sat through various suggestions, of which I remember Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern being an early favorite. Stories about nontraditional relationships, the struggle to love freely, to live meaningfully.

A younger Peter Schjeldahl, image courtesy J. Hamilton.

On one visit, trying to keep up with a busy schedule of exhibitions with new work out by Koons and others that we wanted to see, we dashed into the gallery of the art dealer Daniel Reich who graciously allowed us impromptu use of his back room for an on-mic interview about the Pier Walk project as research for my essay (an earnestly engaged dealer in the hyper money-obsessed scene those days, I was saddened to read about Reich’s passing too some years later from suicide).

I’m sharing the research transcript here as an artifact in hopes it offers some tidbit of a glimpse into Schjeldahl’s wit and presence, which will be sorely missed. Talk about a life lived meaningfully – I’ll save other anecdotes for the lecture circuit but I recall asking him why he’d gotten into art criticism when he so obviously loved working as a poet, he explained that he “liked to make things up,” and eventually would’ve gotten in trouble for it working as a straight reporter, so had to make the switch.

I’ve tacked on a samples of his poetry from the Project Papers here too, since I like to think that poetic recalcitrance is what kept his prose densely scrutable, demanding more meaningful engagement than art speak or today’s formulaic and depressingly predictable “industry copy.” His writing was always rich with the mysteries of a living language, built to engage with the similar state of living artworks that he bent his considerable talent and intellect to — an art in itself more rare than not these days.

So, let’s start with a brief introduction.

Hi, my name is Peter Schjeldahl. I’m a big-time art critic in New York City, and I’m here to answer your questions.

What attracted you to serve as juror for the Navy Pier Walk?

It was difficult, I had to be asked. No, I know my friends Dave Hickey and David Pagel had done it in the past and I like Chicago, so it was easy.

How do you plan to select work for this year’s show?

Carefully. 

Any specifics you’d like to share regarding [your views on] contemporary sculpture?

Oh, gosh. Umm, well it’s all over the place. Sculpture’s a tough art, and it always seems to be on the verge of collapse, but then something happens. It’;s a big, bulky, expensive art that takes up a lot of room and demands a lot from the world, and it needs to be pretty good to feel adequate. Of course, there’s Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, there are major artists working in sculpture. But I can’t really pull names off the top of my head, I’ll forget something, but I’ll respond to anything you want to ask about.

Sure – well, maybe we can talk about any Chicago sculptors you’re looking at and how they might fit in for this show?

Can you suggest some names? 

Example of work from Schjeldahl’s days as a poet. Image courtesy Project Papers.

I’m not sure who you’ve been looking at. 

We haven’t really gotten to that stage yet, it’s all sort of preliminary – I mean, I know there’s a tradition of sculpture in Chicago, probably the strongest regional tradition in the country is in Chicago.

Lots of public art approaches to sculpture.

Yeah, and a lot of Prairie-ism.

The Pier Walk opens and runs concurrently with Chicago’s annual art fair, what added impact does that give the show?

Well, lots of visitors, huh? Chicago always knows how to throw a party. Y’know, I approve of the coincidence.

Navy Pier is very populist, and is the #1 tourist attraction in Illinois, and Pier Walk runs through the tourist season, so far more of a general audience will see this exhibit than are likely to visit a sculpture show at any local museum. What are the pros and cons of that?

I don’t see any cons. Y’know, a lot of people are going to hate it, but it won’t kill ‘em.

How do you think of the public art mission of the Pier Walk?

Public art are two words that everybody keeps trying to stick together and that keep on falling apart, you know? In a democracy, public and art are kind of contradictions. Art is specific and exclusive and personal, and elitist. And [the term] “public,” it means taxpayer’s dollars and responsibility to ranges of identities, I mean … art and democracy consort like cats in a sack. 

They’re not made for each other at all.

No, right. And I love art but given a choice … you know, the great periods of art in history have been periods of great tyranny or oppression. Popes and kings have been very hard on regular people and very good to artists. 

Video still of Schjeldahl in 1983, preparing to read from his “Dear Profession of Art Writing,” courtesy the Maryland Institute College of Art.

In the service of their own image, that sort of thing?

Yeah. Yeah! That’s a very clear … artists are always looking for a clear mandate. That’s what the world wants from them, so they can either accept it or reject it or do it their way, you know, Tintoretto didn’t decide which saint to paint and which ceiling. That was decided for him, and he did great. And we’re still looking at it. Michelangelo, it was … the agenda was handed to him, he didn’t decide. But yeah, I’d rather live in a democracy and take my chances with the public. But uh … you know, when I say “elite,” by the way, it’s not to say an economic elite. It’s a self-selected elite, like the fans of anything. If you say that you’re an art lover, you’re in. You know, you can’t be blackballed, you can’t be kept out.

So then do you think of the Pier Walk as everybody taking their chances? You, the public, the artists?

Well, I can try to do a show that I’d like to look at. I’ll try to do a good show that I think is interesting and accessible and then my part of it is over and the people take over?

Any pressure to exhibit or not exhibit types of works for the context – work that’s maybe more suited to the environment?

Well, I think suitability is just common sense, sure. You know, I’m not going to show a sculpture that eats people, right? It might be very good aesthetically, but it would be a very mean trick on the people who got eaten.

Who are your favorite sculptors?

Oh, Bernini. Rodin. Picasso, David Smith, I think Serra’s pretty great. You know, “liking” isn’t a word that comes to mind with Serra but it sure is impressive.

Last thoughts on the walk and what you’re hoping to do with it?

Well, I’m looking forward to it. As I say, I like Chicago and I like the contentiousness. I like that it’s not going to be a tea party, and I hope to help make a show, it’s not all my doing, but to help make a show that people will remember. That’s a pretty good test of art for me. As opposed to liking and not liking – it tends to be slow in art, and one tends to change one’s mind. You know, it’s not as immediate as sweet and sour when you taste something. So, yeah. Something memorable.

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