Chapter 9 New York Ninth Street Exhibition Summary 250-word for Chapter-9 SUMMARYThere is only part of the content of Chapter-9 in the file I sent to you,

Chapter 9 New York Ninth Street Exhibition Summary 250-word for Chapter-9 SUMMARYThere is only part of the content of Chapter-9 in the file I sent to you, I cannot upload more, I will send you the rest of the files after you take the work.MOST IMPORTANT: PLEASE BE ON TIME!!THANK YOU. 9
CHAPTER
Downtown
Ninth Street Show, New York
May 21-June 10, 1951
gues into
n the first day of an artists’ symposium in 1950, atter to focus
an increasingly centrifugal discussion, Barnett Newman recast Adolph ieb’s con-
cern with abstraction as a query about community.’ Newman’s worry commu-
nity looked back to the public isolation of advanced artists during the ission and
the war, but it also looked forward to divisions that would come with thccesses of
the next decade. The Ninth Street Show of 1951 falls on the cusp of History. It
included many of those who had created the germinal New York School, wit signaled
the passing of their legacy to a larger body of artists. The exhibition marked
moments of both recognition and self-awareness—notice by a public cle extent of
that greater group, and this community’s first view of its own compend wider-
ranging achievement
The public that came to that recognition was a narrow and elite, people
who had brought the “first generation” to critical notice and some suy the late
1940s. Alfred Barr, Jr., the only nonartist participating in the symposius a good
example
. An advocate of contemporary painting before the Acquisitions
mittee of
his museum, he helped bring works by Pollock, de Kooning, and their
the Museum of Modern Art collection. But when he came down to the ring of the
Ninth Street Show with MOMA’s chief curator, Dorothy Miller, Barr wicked that
he knew so few of the artists. He asked Leo Castelli, who had assisted the show’s
organization, about all of these artists whose work he never had and they
retreated to the Cedar Street Tavern around the corner. There Castell marked the
back of a photograph with the names of the artists whose work was piered—even
today, it still seems incredible to Castelli that he had with him two installation photo-
graphs-and he told Barr about the genesis of the exhibition. It was a revelation to
Barr, and to the uptown dealers and collectors who made their way to last 9th Street
that spring, just how large and accomplished the downtown art world had become.
Barr and the others, of course, knew of the Club, an artists’ organization that
met at 39 East 8th Street, and many had been invited by members to attend its Friday
night lectures. These talks, and eventually panel discussions, continued the tradition
established in the fall of 1948 at Subjects of the Artist: A New Art School, organized by
William Baziotes, David Hare, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, later joined
by Barnett Newman. Subjects of the Artist lasted only two semesters, but its 35 East 8th
Street space was taken over in fall 1949 by three New York University art teachers-
Robert Inglehart, Tony Smith, and Hale Woodruff. It became Studio 35, a site of Fri-
day evening lectures whose demise was marked by the 1950 symposium. That same
autumn saw the creation of the Club, intended to be a place of their own for artists to
Joan Mitchell. Untitled, ca. 1950.
Oil on canvas, 69 x 72 in. Robert Avenue where they had gathered for years.
congregate, away from harassment by the manager of the Waldorf Cafeteria on Sixth
Miller Gallery, New York. Collec- The Club was organized in the loft of Ibram Lassaw, after Franz Kline
tion of Cy and Lissa Wagner
. learned of a space available on the north side of 8th Street between Broadway and Uni-
Mitchell and Leo Castelli carried versity Place. Once a number of the founders—including Lewin Alcopley
, Giorgio
this large painting across town for Cavallon, Willem de Kooning, Milton Resnick, and Joop Sanders- decided that the
the Ninth Street Show from her place was adequate, $500 key money was raised with the help of the sculptor
Phillip
West-Side studio.
Pavia, the only member with sufficient funds to back the enterprise. The twenty char-
156
157
ter members removed existing partitions, painted the room white, purchased folding
chairs and tables, and allocated operating responsibilities on a rotating basis. The ini-
tial group was expanded to a voting committee of thirty to forty, which governed the
Club, with general members admitted from proposed candidates when no more than
two voting members objected. (At first only one negative vote denied membership, but
this was changed because Landes Lewitin voted against everyone.) Typical of the times,
an attempt was made to exclude women from membership, though within a year or so
that rule fell with the addition of Elaine de Kooning and Mercedes Matter. By 1952
general membership was close to 150 and included art and book dealers, critics, writers,
and composers. Club members met on Wednesday evenings at 9:30, with discussions
lasting far into the night. Friday evenings were reserved for lectures or panels, arranged
by Pavia until 1955, and open to anyone who claimed that he had been invited by a
member. These events became a center of New York intellectual activity during the
fifties, with speakers from music, philosophy, and literature augmenting the regular
fare of artists and critics.
Like the Club itself, the Ninth Street Show responded to a felt need, yet was
occasioned by happenstance. Stories vary as to who found the place and proposed that
an exhibition be held, but certainly the idea was in the air, and an empty storefront in
the artists’ neighborhood was a probable site. Among those credited with suggesting 60
East 9th Street, most frequently mentioned are Conrad Marca-Relli and Franz Kline,
who, along with John Ferren, had their studios next door. Across 9th Street were Fred-
erick Kiesler, Milton Resnick, and Jean Steubing, and Steubing also is said to have pro-
posed the space. In any case, with artists walking by the vacant building every day, it
was likely that someone would make the suggestion.
The Ninth Street Show was organized by charter and voting members of the
Club. But it was not a Club function and included artists from outside the general
membership. After the idea was raised, meetings were held at the Club and in the stu-
dios of Marca-Relli and Ferren. Kline and Marca-Relli immediately rented the first
floor and basement from the owner for two months at $50 a month, since the building
was slated for demolition and the show had to happen quickly. The organizers worked
together to clean up the place, painting the walls and columns white, installing lights,
and building a partition to increase wall space.7 Artists could be readily contacted using
the Club’s membership list, and according to Marca-Relli, the whole event was put
together in a week or two. But naturally the major issue concerned just who would be
included in the exhibition.
Phillip Pavia remembers a planning meeting at the Club where it was decid-
ed that each voting member would invite one guest to exhibit. If this was the system,
however, it broke down under pressure from both within and outside the Club, and in
actuality the process was much less structured. On some accounts the word just was
passed from artist to artist, with each person bringing one work to 60 East 9th Street a
few days before the opening. Others recall that there was an informal committee that
chose the participants, actively viewing work by newcomers along with notifying
artists in and around the Club. Along with Marca-Relli and Kline, those particularly
active included Willem de Kooning, John Ferren, Milton Resnick, Esteban Vicente,
Ludwig Sander, Alcopley, Jack Tworkov, and Leo Castelli.
This was six years before Leo Castelli opened his gallery, and in 1951 he was a
collector of modest means who knew the dealers and liked to spend time with the
artists. Castelli was one of the first nonartist members of the Club, and when work
needed to be done for the exhibition, he was anxious to help. Marca-Relli asked him
for assistance, since he was familiar with the uptown galleries, and Castelli worked
from the artist’s studio in making arrangements. While stories differ as to his role in
158
DOWNTOWN
“The Irascibles,” 1950. In Life,
January 15, 1951. (from top left)
Willem de Kooning, Adolph
Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda
Sterne, Richard Pousette-Dart,
William Baziotes, Jackson Pol-
lock, Clyfford Still, Robert Moth-
erwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin,
Theodoros Stamos, Jimmy Ernst,
Barnett Newman, James Brooks,
and Mark Rothko. The photo-
graph shows fifteen of the eighteen
artists who refused to submit
paintings to the Metropolitan
Museum of Arts exhibition Amer-
ican Painting Today—1950. They
boycotted the show because of the
conservative jury that was to select
the work.
covering expenses, and in the selection of artists, certainly Castelli was actively involved
in many facets of the exhibition. And in hanging the show he was a crucial figure, since
he exhibited nothing. For no single artist could have organized the installation without
major problems, and Milton Resnick seems to have approached Castelli for just this
reason. It is easy to understand the reluctance with which he agreed.
Castelli’s position as impartial installer was a taxing one, for with about
seventy artists and relatively limited space, discontent was inevitable. On the day of
the hanging, Castelli and a group of artists set to work. Marca-Relli, who wanted the
installation to be done by the artist organizers, remembers that Franz Kline started
the process, picking up his large black-and-white picture and putting it on the wall.
But Castelli soon began to give directions, and Marca-Relli left in a huff. In the end
Castelli seems to have coordinated things, also taking the brunt of anger from artists
unhappy with the location of their pieces. As he said in 1956: “Hung the show!… I
hung it twenty times. Each time it was done, an artist would come in and raise hell
about the placing of his painting.”10 Even after the exhibition opened some artists
insisted on changes, as Pearl Fine did in switching her painting with that of Alcopley,
moving his next to Lee Krasner’s. At least every artist selected his or her own work and
delivered it to the show. Most paintings were just walked through the streets-Castelli
and Joan Mitchell carried her large canvas across 9th Street from her studio on the west
side–for the majority of artists lived within the downtown area bordered by 8th and
12th streets between First and Sixth avenues. 11
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