Image Source:
McNeil, Dean. Marcia Tucker. N.d. Photograph. Stanford University Digital Collections, Stanford. Web. 23 Feb 2014. https://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution/bio-marcia-tucker.
Inspirational Quotes:
“…a truly great person has a profound curiosity about the world and the people in it, an interest that encompasses everything and everyone. Real curiosity, I know now, doesn’t leave room for judgment.”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 57.
“Works of art are like people. Some you don’t feel like spending time with after you’ve met. Others seem interesting, but you’re overscheduled and don’t want to make any more commitments. Once in a while, you fall madly in love and have a wild affair – until someone else comes along and steals your heart. And sometimes you become friends and the friendship grows and deepens and lasts a lifetime. The work I like most is always the art I don’t understand – the stuff that sticks in my mind but eludes me in every other way. It nags at me, making sure that when I least expect it, it’ll interrupt my dinner or my sleep with stupid questions, like, ‘Why do I make you uncomfortable? Why can’t you just accept me as I am?’”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. x.
“Act first, think later – that way you might have something to think about.”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 147.
Selected Exhibitions:
Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1969
Anti-Illusion was the first large-scale exhibition of “Process Art” (Post-minimalism) in an American Museum. Audiences were presented with objects that had been gathered and arranged, not necessarily created out of traditional art materials, therefore questioning what can be considered art and what museums have the capacity to display as art.
Artists include Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Lynda Benglis, Bill Bollinger, Rafael Ferrer, Philip Glass, Eva Hesse, Barry Le Va, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle
“I encountered large chunks of melting ice which blocked my passage, and to get around them I had to wade through a sea of rotting leaves. On gaining the entrance and heading towards the checkroom, I tripped over a large square of cyclone fencing lying flat on the floor and almost broke my leg. On being told that these artifacts were part of an exhibition of conceptual and process art, I made my way to the fourth floor to behold the rest of the objects featured in this show. As nothing is really capable of eliciting surprise or shock from the seasoned reviewer, I was not taken aback to find myself wandering about amidst masses of mutilated hay, strung-out fiberglass, neon tubing, poorly constructed wooden scaffolding, and even bowls of dog food. Why not?”
Source:
Nemser, Cindy. “The Art of Frustration.” Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Feb, 1971). Web. 24 Feb 2014. http://networkedblogs.com/vmHim?a=share.
Richard Tuttle (retrospective), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1975
Richard Tuttle was a controversial show of post-minimalist work, which catalyzed Tucker’s dismissal from the Whitney. The actual art was hard to find in the galleries because it was so minimal – audiences thought it was a bad joke and a waste of time, so Tucker’s experimental choices were no longer welcome at the Museum.
“A three-inch piece of fraying cord, nailed up about thigh-high, was holding down an entire wall at the Whitney. Irregular geometric shapes had been cut from canvas, messily hemmed, dyed in pastel colors then pinned up or laid across the floor. Funny bits of florist's wire were nailed to the wall, so that they vaguely (very vaguely) mimicked wavy pencil lines drawn under them. Hilton Kramer, then a famously conservative critic at the New York Times, took the show as the perfect occasion to release some of his trademark bile. He called the exhibition ‘irredeemable,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘a bore and a waste.’”
Source:
Gopnik, Blake. “For Richard Tuttle, A Little Went A Long Way.” The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. 1 Dec 2005. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002419.html.
‘Bad’ Painting, New Museum, New York, NY, 1978
This iconic exhibition at the new New Museum satirizes the prestige and honor of the museum or gallery show of “good” work. Tucker plays on the seal of approval which museums and galleries bestow on artists when they display their work – there is no good or bad art; every viewer has a different perspective on aesthetics and tastes.
Artists include James Albertson, Joan Brown, Eduardo Carrillo, James Chatelain, William Copley, Charles Garabedian, Robert Chambless Hendon, Joseph Hilton, Neil Jenney, Judith Linhares, P. Walter Siler, Earl Staley, Shari Urquhart, William Wegman
“‘Bad’ Painting is an ironic title for ‘good painting, which is characterized by deformation of the figure, a mixture of art-historical and non-art resources, and fantastic and irreverent content. In its disregard for accurate representation and its rejection of conventional attitudes about art, ‘bad’ painting is at once funny and moving, and often scandalous in its scorn for the standards of good taste.” – Marcia Tucker, press release
Source:
“‘Bad Painting.” New Museum Digital Archive, New Museum. Web. 23 February 2014. http://archive.newmuseum.org/index.php/Detail/Occurrence/Show/occurrence_id/5.
Bad Girls, New Museum, New York, NY, 1994
Iconic pre-WACK! exhibition about women artists and explorations of gender in art. Accompanied by stellar catalog with funny and insightful essay from Tucker about what it means to be a bad girl in American society today, and how we might all benefit from being bad girls in everyday life.
Artists include Janine Antoni, Andrea Bowers, Renée Cox, Nancy Dwyer, Matt Groening, Guerrilla Girls, Erika Rothenberg, Joyce Scott, Carrie Mae Weems
“Bad Girls presented work by over 60 visual, performance and media artists dealing with gender issues in ways that are both humorous and distinctly transgressive.”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia. Bad Girls (exhibition catalog). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Biographical Information:
b. Brooklyn, NY, 1940
died Santa Barbara, CA, 2006
1961 B.A. Theater and Art, Connecticut College
École du Louvre (1960)
1965 M.A. Art History, New York University Institute of Fine Arts
Sources:
Smith, Roberta. "Marcia Tucker, 66, Founder of a Radical Art Museum." The New York Times, 19 October 2006: n. pg. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/obituaries/19tucker.html.
"Tucker, Marcia, née Silverman." Dictionary of Art Historians. Dictionary of Art Historians. Web. 23 Feb 2014. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/tuckerm.htm.
Employment:
Secretary, Department of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Modern Art (1961)
Assistant to Rene Bouche (painter) (1962-63)
Editorial Associate, Art News (1965-69)
Instructor, University of Rhode Island (1966-68)
City University of New York Graduate Center (1967-68)
School of Visual Arts (1969-73)
Cataloger of private collections, including Alfred H. Barr Jr. (first director of MoMA) and Margaret Scolari Barr, and the Ferdinand Howald Collection of American Art at Columbus Gallery of Fine Art (1966-69); William N. Copley (painter) (1963-66)
Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art (1969-1977)
Founder and Director, New Museum of Contemporary Art (1977-1999)
Sources:
Smith, Roberta. "Marcia Tucker, 66, Founder of a Radical Art Museum." The New York Times, 19 October 2006: n. p. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/obituaries/19tucker.html.
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
"Tucker, Marcia, née Silverman." Dictionary of Art Historians. Dictionary of Art Historians. Web. 23 Feb 2014. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/tuckerm.htm.
Further Reading:
Albertson, James. "Bad" Painting (exhibition catalog). New York: New Museum, 1978.
“History.” New Museum History, New Museum. Web. 42 Feb. 2014. http://www.newmuseum.org/history.
Smith, Roberta. "Marcia Tucker, 66, Founder of a Radical Art Museum." The New York Times, October 19, 2006, sec. B; The Arts/Cultural Desk.
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Tucker, Marcia. Bad Girls (exhibition catalog). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Marion Boulton Stroud. Marcia Tucker: Three Stories. Mission Viejo, CA: ASAP, 2008.
Tuttle, Richard, Marcia Tucker, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Otis Art Institute. Richard Tuttle: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 12-November 16, 1975, Otis Art Institute Gallery of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, January 16-February 29, 1976 (exhibition catalog). New York: The Museum, 1975.
Whitney Museum of American Art. Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials (exhibition catalog). New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969.
"!Women Art Revolution: About Marcia Tucker." Stanford University Digital Collections. Stanford University. Web. 23 Feb 2014. https://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution/bio-marcia-tucker.
Major Contributions to the field of Curatorial Practice:
Tucker believed that art museums have a responsibility to curate the work of living artists, particularly those “who did not yet have wide public exposure or critical acceptance to a larger public” (New Museum). She founded the New Museum specifically to dedicate an art museum to studying, exhibiting, and interpreting contemporary art – one of the first contemporary art museums in New York since WWII. The shows she curated were often conceptually and politically challenging, including the infamous Richard Tuttle retrospective at the Whitney in 1975 as well as Bad Girls at the New Museum in 1994. In her curatorial practice, she believed that art could and should be conceptually and politically challenging to audiences. She is an important curator because she took risks by working with experimental contemporary artists and art movements, and she recognized what was missing in the art world conversation and promptly created a museum and exhibitions about it. Her boldness and determination, tempered with humor, is inspiring.
Sources:
“History.” New Museum History, New Museum. Web. 42 Feb. 2014. http://www.newmuseum.org/history
"!Women Art Revolution: About Marcia Tucker." Stanford University Digital Collections. Stanford University. Web. 23 Feb 2014. https://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution/bio-marcia-tucker.
Tags: #NewMuseum, #FeministArt, #GuerrillaGirls, #ConceptualArt, #PoliticalArt, #CurateLivingArtists, #ContemporaryArt, #RadicalCurator
Research completed by Kelly Johnson
McNeil, Dean. Marcia Tucker. N.d. Photograph. Stanford University Digital Collections, Stanford. Web. 23 Feb 2014. https://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution/bio-marcia-tucker.
Inspirational Quotes:
“…a truly great person has a profound curiosity about the world and the people in it, an interest that encompasses everything and everyone. Real curiosity, I know now, doesn’t leave room for judgment.”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 57.
“Works of art are like people. Some you don’t feel like spending time with after you’ve met. Others seem interesting, but you’re overscheduled and don’t want to make any more commitments. Once in a while, you fall madly in love and have a wild affair – until someone else comes along and steals your heart. And sometimes you become friends and the friendship grows and deepens and lasts a lifetime. The work I like most is always the art I don’t understand – the stuff that sticks in my mind but eludes me in every other way. It nags at me, making sure that when I least expect it, it’ll interrupt my dinner or my sleep with stupid questions, like, ‘Why do I make you uncomfortable? Why can’t you just accept me as I am?’”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. x.
“Act first, think later – that way you might have something to think about.”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 147.
Selected Exhibitions:
Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1969
Anti-Illusion was the first large-scale exhibition of “Process Art” (Post-minimalism) in an American Museum. Audiences were presented with objects that had been gathered and arranged, not necessarily created out of traditional art materials, therefore questioning what can be considered art and what museums have the capacity to display as art.
Artists include Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Lynda Benglis, Bill Bollinger, Rafael Ferrer, Philip Glass, Eva Hesse, Barry Le Va, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle
“I encountered large chunks of melting ice which blocked my passage, and to get around them I had to wade through a sea of rotting leaves. On gaining the entrance and heading towards the checkroom, I tripped over a large square of cyclone fencing lying flat on the floor and almost broke my leg. On being told that these artifacts were part of an exhibition of conceptual and process art, I made my way to the fourth floor to behold the rest of the objects featured in this show. As nothing is really capable of eliciting surprise or shock from the seasoned reviewer, I was not taken aback to find myself wandering about amidst masses of mutilated hay, strung-out fiberglass, neon tubing, poorly constructed wooden scaffolding, and even bowls of dog food. Why not?”
Source:
Nemser, Cindy. “The Art of Frustration.” Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Feb, 1971). Web. 24 Feb 2014. http://networkedblogs.com/vmHim?a=share.
Richard Tuttle (retrospective), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1975
Richard Tuttle was a controversial show of post-minimalist work, which catalyzed Tucker’s dismissal from the Whitney. The actual art was hard to find in the galleries because it was so minimal – audiences thought it was a bad joke and a waste of time, so Tucker’s experimental choices were no longer welcome at the Museum.
“A three-inch piece of fraying cord, nailed up about thigh-high, was holding down an entire wall at the Whitney. Irregular geometric shapes had been cut from canvas, messily hemmed, dyed in pastel colors then pinned up or laid across the floor. Funny bits of florist's wire were nailed to the wall, so that they vaguely (very vaguely) mimicked wavy pencil lines drawn under them. Hilton Kramer, then a famously conservative critic at the New York Times, took the show as the perfect occasion to release some of his trademark bile. He called the exhibition ‘irredeemable,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘a bore and a waste.’”
Source:
Gopnik, Blake. “For Richard Tuttle, A Little Went A Long Way.” The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. 1 Dec 2005. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002419.html.
‘Bad’ Painting, New Museum, New York, NY, 1978
This iconic exhibition at the new New Museum satirizes the prestige and honor of the museum or gallery show of “good” work. Tucker plays on the seal of approval which museums and galleries bestow on artists when they display their work – there is no good or bad art; every viewer has a different perspective on aesthetics and tastes.
Artists include James Albertson, Joan Brown, Eduardo Carrillo, James Chatelain, William Copley, Charles Garabedian, Robert Chambless Hendon, Joseph Hilton, Neil Jenney, Judith Linhares, P. Walter Siler, Earl Staley, Shari Urquhart, William Wegman
“‘Bad’ Painting is an ironic title for ‘good painting, which is characterized by deformation of the figure, a mixture of art-historical and non-art resources, and fantastic and irreverent content. In its disregard for accurate representation and its rejection of conventional attitudes about art, ‘bad’ painting is at once funny and moving, and often scandalous in its scorn for the standards of good taste.” – Marcia Tucker, press release
Source:
“‘Bad Painting.” New Museum Digital Archive, New Museum. Web. 23 February 2014. http://archive.newmuseum.org/index.php/Detail/Occurrence/Show/occurrence_id/5.
Bad Girls, New Museum, New York, NY, 1994
Iconic pre-WACK! exhibition about women artists and explorations of gender in art. Accompanied by stellar catalog with funny and insightful essay from Tucker about what it means to be a bad girl in American society today, and how we might all benefit from being bad girls in everyday life.
Artists include Janine Antoni, Andrea Bowers, Renée Cox, Nancy Dwyer, Matt Groening, Guerrilla Girls, Erika Rothenberg, Joyce Scott, Carrie Mae Weems
“Bad Girls presented work by over 60 visual, performance and media artists dealing with gender issues in ways that are both humorous and distinctly transgressive.”
Source:
Tucker, Marcia. Bad Girls (exhibition catalog). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Biographical Information:
b. Brooklyn, NY, 1940
died Santa Barbara, CA, 2006
1961 B.A. Theater and Art, Connecticut College
École du Louvre (1960)
1965 M.A. Art History, New York University Institute of Fine Arts
Sources:
Smith, Roberta. "Marcia Tucker, 66, Founder of a Radical Art Museum." The New York Times, 19 October 2006: n. pg. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/obituaries/19tucker.html.
"Tucker, Marcia, née Silverman." Dictionary of Art Historians. Dictionary of Art Historians. Web. 23 Feb 2014. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/tuckerm.htm.
Employment:
Secretary, Department of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Modern Art (1961)
Assistant to Rene Bouche (painter) (1962-63)
Editorial Associate, Art News (1965-69)
Instructor, University of Rhode Island (1966-68)
City University of New York Graduate Center (1967-68)
School of Visual Arts (1969-73)
Cataloger of private collections, including Alfred H. Barr Jr. (first director of MoMA) and Margaret Scolari Barr, and the Ferdinand Howald Collection of American Art at Columbus Gallery of Fine Art (1966-69); William N. Copley (painter) (1963-66)
Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art (1969-1977)
Founder and Director, New Museum of Contemporary Art (1977-1999)
Sources:
Smith, Roberta. "Marcia Tucker, 66, Founder of a Radical Art Museum." The New York Times, 19 October 2006: n. p. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/obituaries/19tucker.html.
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
"Tucker, Marcia, née Silverman." Dictionary of Art Historians. Dictionary of Art Historians. Web. 23 Feb 2014. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/tuckerm.htm.
Further Reading:
Albertson, James. "Bad" Painting (exhibition catalog). New York: New Museum, 1978.
“History.” New Museum History, New Museum. Web. 42 Feb. 2014. http://www.newmuseum.org/history.
Smith, Roberta. "Marcia Tucker, 66, Founder of a Radical Art Museum." The New York Times, October 19, 2006, sec. B; The Arts/Cultural Desk.
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Lisa Lou. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Tucker, Marcia. Bad Girls (exhibition catalog). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Tucker, Marcia, ed. Marion Boulton Stroud. Marcia Tucker: Three Stories. Mission Viejo, CA: ASAP, 2008.
Tuttle, Richard, Marcia Tucker, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Otis Art Institute. Richard Tuttle: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 12-November 16, 1975, Otis Art Institute Gallery of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, January 16-February 29, 1976 (exhibition catalog). New York: The Museum, 1975.
Whitney Museum of American Art. Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials (exhibition catalog). New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969.
"!Women Art Revolution: About Marcia Tucker." Stanford University Digital Collections. Stanford University. Web. 23 Feb 2014. https://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution/bio-marcia-tucker.
Major Contributions to the field of Curatorial Practice:
Tucker believed that art museums have a responsibility to curate the work of living artists, particularly those “who did not yet have wide public exposure or critical acceptance to a larger public” (New Museum). She founded the New Museum specifically to dedicate an art museum to studying, exhibiting, and interpreting contemporary art – one of the first contemporary art museums in New York since WWII. The shows she curated were often conceptually and politically challenging, including the infamous Richard Tuttle retrospective at the Whitney in 1975 as well as Bad Girls at the New Museum in 1994. In her curatorial practice, she believed that art could and should be conceptually and politically challenging to audiences. She is an important curator because she took risks by working with experimental contemporary artists and art movements, and she recognized what was missing in the art world conversation and promptly created a museum and exhibitions about it. Her boldness and determination, tempered with humor, is inspiring.
Sources:
“History.” New Museum History, New Museum. Web. 42 Feb. 2014. http://www.newmuseum.org/history
"!Women Art Revolution: About Marcia Tucker." Stanford University Digital Collections. Stanford University. Web. 23 Feb 2014. https://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution/bio-marcia-tucker.
Tags: #NewMuseum, #FeministArt, #GuerrillaGirls, #ConceptualArt, #PoliticalArt, #CurateLivingArtists, #ContemporaryArt, #RadicalCurator
Research completed by Kelly Johnson
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