Newsletter 40 Fall 2010

8/6/2019 Newsletter 40 Fall 2010

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american society of contemporary artistsNUMBER 40 Fall 2010

FROM BACK THEN TO HERE & NOW:The Anatomy of an Art Exhibition

Staten Island AdvanceBy Michael J. Fressola

Theres earth and theres sky throughout LandscapeInvitational, a modestlyrefreshing summer show upthrough Aug. 27 at the ArtLab gallery. But beyond the

top and bottom, the imagesare surprisingly dissimilar.

In such a broad-mindedarray of landscape options,painter Linda Butti representsthe outlaw fringe. If she didntname her shimmering,sketchy/abstract paintingsAutumn Works and WinterEvening, youd never guessthey have anything to do withterrain.

They are part of a long-

running experiment in whichthe artist extracts forms from the natural world and riffson them, often in unexpected ways. The goal is to trans-mit impressions idiosyncratic and personal ones inthis case rather than information.

Autumn Works has an orderly chorus-line of twig-like verticals floating in a light bath. The colors have

more April than Octo-ber. Winter Evening isequally gossamer andtricky. Maybe theaurora borealis is over-head in this strange,bright work.

All of the featuredpainters are local.Some are more inter-

ested in Island subjectsthan others. Historically, landscape has been important.The borough was a jumping-off place for Hudson RiverSchool painters, and home to one or two, including Jas-per Cropsey (1830-1901) and Alfred Thompson Bricher(1837-1908).

LINDA BUTTI

Autumn Woods

Winter Evening

Basha Maryanska: Artist ,Juror, CuratorBy Estelle Levy

B ring together an American artist born in Gdynia, Po-land, with poignant European memories vividly puls-ing, and the oldest professional womens art organizationin America, a Center whose original benefactor was aCivil War General, and you have more than a dynamic

art exhibition. You have the interface of BACK THENmanifesting in the HERE & NOW and culminating in aunique and successful exhibition, The World of Artists:International Womens Show. Basha Maryanska, artistand show juror/curator, created this splendid event.

Basha Maryanska, now a resident of Beacon, NewYork, became an integral part of the general Beaconcommunity and particularly of its thriving arts community.

Back then, when living in Poland, she received herMFA from the Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts and wasadmitted into Ecole de Louvre in Paris, France, focusingon Medieval and Early Renaissance Art. Her art has hadinternational recognition. Her work can be seen at the

National Museum of Gdansk, Poland, France, the UnitedKingdom, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Mexico and inmany places here in the USA, including Harvard Univer-sity.

Her art reflects the depth of her life experiences, asshe did not focus on art alone. Back then she was alsoan activist in the Polish Solidarity Movement, workingagainst the Communist Occupation of Poland. The ideaof leaving Poland and living elsewhere did not enter hermind until her protest activities made her fear imprison-ment. Luckily, she received the Kosciuszko FoundationFellowship in NYC. She, her husband and baby son leftPoland on a temporary passport, received political asy-lum and, in time, became a US Citizens. Yet becauseher art is shown throughout Europe, Ms. Maryanska con-siders herself a citizen of the world. You will not be sur-prised to learn her work was being shown in multiple artvenues while she also mounted the Beacon, The Worldof Artists, International Womens Show. It is her love forcreating which spurred the desire to hold The World of

Artists show in the Howland Center of Beacon. She suc-cessfully approached Florence Northcutt, Director of TheHowland Center. Back

(See From Back Then page 3)


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Husband of ASCA Member: Olivia Koopalethes

By Janet Indick

Leonard Alberts was born in the Bronx on November24,1924. Hewas achild ofthe de-pressionand couldremembertimeswhen hisparentshad no

money to buy food. As a result, he and his brothers,Kenny and Jerry were sent to Eddie Cantor's, SurpriseLake Camp so that they would have an environmentwhich could sustain them. It was in this setting that helearned many of the songs that he would continue to singfor the rest of his life.

Since he was smart, ambitious, focused and full ofenergy, he was advanced several grades in school, fellin love with art and painting and attended the prestigiousMusic and Art High School. In 1941 he entered CooperUnion College as an art student at the age of 16. Hewas inducted into the United States Army in 1943 wherehe served in the Training Aids Division of the Army AirCorps in New York City for the duration of the war. Thisenabled him to continue his art education at nightthrough 1945.

At Cooper he met his most influential teacher andmentor, Wallace Harrison. There he also met anotherartist, his future wife,Olivia Koopalethes. They marriedin 1946 and moved to Paris in 1949 to continue theirstudies in the studios of Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote.His works were shown to critical acclaim at Gallery Huitand Paris de Chaillot, for Americans in Paris.

While the couple lived in Paris, their son Alexanderwas born in 1952. With another child on the way, theyreturned to New York, where daughter Rene was bornin 1953. These were eventful years; Leonard opened his

own commercial art studio, which provided photo re-touching services for the blossoming advertising world ofNew York City. His hard work and great success wasreflected in clients that included Coca-Cola, SeventeenMagazine and Bloomingdales.

In 1955, he built a home and moved his young familyto Demarest, New Jersey. Leonard airbrushed duringthe day and continued to paint at night in his attic studio.It was in 1963 that Leonard and Olivia decided to build

(See Leonard Alberts, page 4)

The Philosopher's ZoneAlan Saunders , ABC Radio National 4 March 2006

The following is the complete interview, conductedby Alan Saunders of ABC Radio National. His guestis Arthur C. Danto, Johnsonian Professor EmeritusPhilosophy, Columbia University. He is best knownfor his contributions to the philosophy of art and aesthet-ics.

I t's in a gallery, it's carrying a heavy price tag, but is itart? And how can we know that it's art when it lookssuspiciously like a Campbell's soup can or the artist'sown unmade bed? Arthur C. Danto, one of the most sig-nificant philosophers in the English-speaking world, hasevolved a theory of what art is and how we can know it

when we see it. Moreover, his theory has turned out tobe a powerful tool for analysing the history of philosophy,too. According to Danto, philosophy becomes necessarywhen the need arises to distinguish between two indis-cernibles: Is it real life or is it a dream? Is it cause andeffect or just one damn thing after another? Is it a Brillobox or is it art?

Alan Saunders: Hello, I'm Alan Saunders, and onABC Radio National this is The Philosopher's Zone .Well, if you were just l istening toAll in the Mind, youmight have some idea now of what makes a 'creativebrain', but what about the products of all that creativity?How do you know it when you see it, or rather, how doyou know that what you are seeing is one form of creativ-ity - let's call it art - rather than another, which we cancall craft.

In other words: It's in a gallery, it's carrying a heavyprice tag, but is it art? And how can we know that it's artwhen it looks suspiciously like a Campbell's soup can orthe artist's own unmade bed?

I'm devoting the whole of this week's program to aconversation with Arthur C. Danto, Emeritus JohnsonianProfessor of Philosophy at Columbia University, and oneof the most significant philosophers in the English-speaking world, who has evolved an elaborate theory of

(See Is It Art? page 8)

IS IT ART?In Its Entirety

We need volunteers to help continue the survival ofour ASCA Newsletter. We welcome art-relatedarticles, reviews of exhibitions and your upcom-

ing shows.

Send your material to:Hank Rondina

209 Lincoln Place,Eastchester, New York 10709;

Telephone (914) 793-1376;or email it to [email protected]

IN MEMORIAM:LEONARD ALBERTS 1924-2010
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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leagues: Jolanta Budny, a Polish art curator, came toBeacon for the opening reception; Joanna Banek, Pro-fessor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow; BarbaraFrankiewicz, Fine Arts Professor in Krakow; ViktoriaDubovyk, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lvov, Ukraine;Agnieszka Opala from Poznan, Poland, who exhibitsthroughout Europe; Natalia Koren-Kroppf, a graduatefrom the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Russian Dianna Bekkerman, is Ms. Maryanskas formerstudent and Pratt Graduate and Sculptor dates LeaWeinberg of Israel, now American.

The NAWA participants in this show included: CarolBolt, Sheila Cappelletti, Barbara Dorfman, PhyllisRosser, Lisa Jasinski, Cheryl Vlacko, Roxie Johnson,Jude Harzer, Melissa Imossi, Kelly A. Nelson, PokeyPark, Sondra Gold, Phyllis Savage, Andrea Kelly, HelenBurdon Price, Cheryl Dyment, Valerie Mankoff, LaurieWeber, Anita Pearl, Sarah Kobs Horvat, Gayle Madeira,Judith Gilden, Elizabeth Castonguay, Phyllis T.Malinow,Amy Kool, Lore Baer, Priscilla Heep-Coll,Lea Weinberg,Joanne Tarlin, Harriet FeBland, Carol Barlowe, Judith N.

Cantor, Valerie Mankoff, Jane Notides-Benzing, PatBenincasa, Arline Reimann and Patricia Search.Ms. Maryanskas, 48 x 92 mixed media work on can-

vas captured my attention. It is both exquisite and com-plex. It is a work you can continuously look at and feelamazed by its beauty and mixed media details.

She combines oils, emulsions and acrylics to create asense of the environment with melting glaciers that focuson the issue of global warming. It is a must-see work thatcaptures ones attention and creates the desire to lingerbefore it. The complexity involved in the work ALASKAsomehow explains Ms. Maryanskas ability to success-fully bring together all the complexities involved inmounting The World of Artists: International Womens

Show, with members of the National Association ofWomen Artists.

(Continued From Back Then page 1)

then, this Center had Joseph Howland, as its initial bene-factor. He was a Civil War General who in 1872 joined agroup to create a library. That library of yesteryear, overtime, became The Howland Cultural Center of Beacon,N.Y. Its Norwegian architecture, with a seven- gabledroof, is outwardly and within a vibrant structure in itself.About one hundred years later, in1992, the Center was

landmarked.There can be no doubt Ms. Maryanska knows how to

bring together her key relationships. As a member of theNational Association of Women Artists (NAWA), Ms.Maryanska succeeded in gaining NAWAs willingness toserve as a show sponsor. Hammond, NAWAs Presidentand an exhibiting artist in her own right, lived up to the"Back Then" NAWA 1889 intent to support and encour-age women artists in every positive way possiblesince"Back Then" men wouldnt and didnt. Ms. Maryanska, inthe "Here and Now" brought together NAWA and theHowland Cultural Center, two entities born in the late1800s.Through this NAWA/HOWLAND link, Ms. Maryan-ska was able to plan this very complex show involvingNAWA members, along with international women artists.NAWA President Hammond honored Ms. Maryanskaduring the 2010 NAWA Annual Luncheon at the NationalArts Club, in NYC.

While wonderment existed as to how this complexshow would be actualized, it is clear to me based on herbackground; Ms. Maryanska knew she would succeed.Obviously it wasnt easy. Contacting the internationalwomen artists she knew, jurying the NAWA applications,preparing the rejection and acceptance letters, receivingthe work, hanging it, writing a press release and a pricelist, creating an announcement card, all consumed hertime and her life for a while. Yet, singlehandedly done,

and The World of Artists: International Womens Showwith members of NAWA, opened on May 1st 2010, andwas a well attended, huge success. A fuller understand-ing of all the above details can be simply put: There were88 works in the show, which included 48 NAWAworks,11 Polish, 7 Russian, 2 Indian, 3 Ukrainian, 2 Aus-tralian, and 9 American.

The diversity of her selections and the quality of thework created a show that was a feast to see: oils on can-vas, on linen, on board,, fiber, graphite pencil, graphitecrayon, paper, mixed media, steel sculptures, bronzesculptures, marble, acrylic, collage, etchings, linocut,charcoal/gesso, photography, stone, porcelain, computer

graphic, cold & hot batik.Actions and concerns do speak louder than words.

Through these one can see anothers values and charac-ter. When I heard Ms. Maryanska express concern aboutthe feelings of those she had to reject and observed thatshe entered only two rather than 3 or more of her ownworks, I recognized the humanity and sensitivity instilledin her "Back Then" that led her opposition of the Commu-nist Occupation of Poland. The absence of me, me onlyis indeed refreshing. It is also in Ms. Maryanskas natureto remain in contact with her European friends and col-

Basha MaryanskaLight-and-Shadow


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(Leonard Alberts, from page 2)

another home in Alpine, New Jersey, where he livedfor the remainder of his life. Being civic-minded, Leonardcontributed by participating on the Alpine, Town PlanningBoard, as well as being instrumental in the building of thetown Swim and Tennis Club.

As a result of his careful planning, Leonard was ableto retire in 1980 at age 55 from life as a commercial artist

and fully dedicated himself to his personal art of drawingand painting. Focusing on themes from Greek Mythol-ogy, he was able to mount exhibitions of his work at theBergen Community Museum, the Greek Consulate Cul-tural Center in New York City, Grand Prospect, EdwardThe Williams College at Fairleigh Dickinson University,the Fairlawn Public Library, as well is a one-man show inKos, Greece.

His only grandchild, Noah, the son of Rene and herhusband Stanley Grill, was born in 1981. Leonard, adevoted grandfather, would pick him up each day fromschool, stuff him full of food that his mother would nothave allowed him to eat, taught him about life, shared hischildhood songs, practice pitching and batting in thebackyard, and the fine art of debate on any given sub-

ject.Leonard was a passionate and opinionated man who

enjoyed good times with friends at the local diner. Heloved his family above all, and his first priority was tocare for them and be the best provider possible. He alsoloved to sing and loved his food, even when it did notlove him back. He was a great fan of Picasso and JudgeJudy. He was an artist who left behind him the legacy ofhis paintings, family and friends. He will be missed.

SAY HI! TO HONEY

An exhibit of 20 paintings and two sculpturesby Honey and Bernie Kassoy

By Jim Kelvin

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

I always knew Iwas going to bean artist, saysHoney Kassoy.Her father, Ad-olph Blumenk-ranz, was anartist, and hebelieved it too.Art, and flowers:Honeys given

name is Hort-ense/ gardener.Blumenkranz means blooming gar-land.Very flowery, said the artist.

That may explain her penchant for still life, and hervivid palette, which will be evident at Say Hi! To Honey,an exhibit of 20 paintings and two sculptures by Honeyand her husband, Bernie, who passed away in 2008.The opening reception is 5-7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, atThe Freemans Journal, 21 Railroad Ave.Adolph Blumenkranz taught art in New York City andalso owned a camp, selling it in 1928 to invest the pro-ceeds in the market. He lost it all in the Crash of 1929.Nonetheless, the Blumenkranzes, both teachers, wereable to put aside enough so that by 1932, they were ableto take Honey and her older brother to tour the museumsof Europe.

That May, she attended the Parsons School of De-signs program in Paris on a scholarship, (learning howto smoke withstyle).In June,the family piledinto a car andwere off.

A vividmemory: Driv-ing into Ger-

many, she sawa billboard,Wacht Hitler

vote for Hit-ler. Who is Hitler? Honey asked. Oh, some nut, herdad replied. Hitler took control of the Reichstag later thatyear.

Back in the States, Honey spent the next three yearsat Pratt, studying painting, watercolors, and life drawing.She studied sculpture with Chaim Gross.She still remembers one teacher, a Jim Martin, who

ASCA 93rd ANNUAL EXHIBITIONWHATS NEW?

November 9tTH November 21STBroome Street Gallery

498 Broome St.New York, NY,

RECEPTION: SAT., NOV. 13TH, 3-5PM

The ASCA ART GALLERY presents examples of artby ASCA members selected from the Gallery Al-bum. Please send photos of your recent work,

and if space permits, they may be included in upcomingeditions of the Newsletter. Remember to include yourname, the title of your work, the medium, and an arrowshowing which side is UP.

Mail your photos to :Hank Rondina

209 Lincoln PlaceEastchester, New York 10709

or e-mail your jpegs to [email protected]


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ASCA ART GALLERY

The ASCA ART GALLERY presents examples of artby ASCA members selected from the Gallery Al-bum. Please send photos of your recent work,

and if space permits, they may be included in upcoming

editions of the Newsletter. Remember to include yourname, the title of your work, the medium, and an arrowshowing which side is UP.

Mail your photos to Hank Rondina, 209 LincolnPlace, Eastchester, New York 10709, or

e-mail your jpegs to [email protected]

Harriet FeBlandZen

relief-wall-construction/painting

15"h x 12"w x 21/2"d

Janet Indick

Rose Sigal IbsenNothingness

Georgiana Cray BartMonets Lily Pond #2

Pastel/mixed mediaElaine AlibrandiSecrets

Oil on layered slit canvas


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Estelle LevyHonoring WhistleBlowers

Doris WymanUntitled

Lee, Sun-DonAwakening The Dragon

Roaming Across the UniverseLea WeinbergCloseness

Esther BermanCompletion

Mixed media collage, paper, oil pastel

Jeanet DreskinWilliwas B1

Gauche/watercolor


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ances, indiscernible, they look exactly alike, but one is apiece of avant-garde art, and the other one is just a utili-tarian container. And I thought, Well that raises the ques-tion of what is art in a very different form than has everbeen raised before. Before, people would just askblankly, What is art? What Warhol did was to put it in adifferent way. How, if you have two objects which lookexactly alike, are, as I put it, indiscernibles, one being a

work of art and the other one not, what's the difference?And it seemed to me that the difference has to be invisi-ble. You can't tell really the difference between one artand the ordinary object just by looking. And then some-body said, 'Well there's a difference, I mean, Warhol'sboxes are made out of wood, the Brillo cartons are madeout of corrugated cardboard', and I said, 'You mean totell me that the difference between art and reality is thedifference between wood and cardboard and so forth?That can't be the answer.' Philosophers have beenpecking away at the question of art for 2500 years. Imean the history of philosophy basically begins with thatdiscussion in Plato. So it's been regarded of some impor-

tance to mark the difference between art and reality, butnobody had ever come across anything where art andreality were so indiscernible that you realised that youwere going to have to do some serious thinking to tryand make the difference, and make the difference count.That was the method that I was working with, and Ithought that it had the character of any classical philoso-phical question where you've got two things that can't betold apart, but they're momentously different. Like in thebeginning of Descartes' Meditations, Descartes says,'Well what better evidence can I have for what thesenses provide me with?' And then he says, 'Well thatwould be true if only I knew I was sensing, because as amatter of fact, I dreamt that I was having certain experi-

ences and the dreams were very vivid, and I would havehad no idea that there was nothing in front of me, nothingbeing perceived until I woke up, and realised that I'dbeen dreaming'.

So, the difference between dream experience andwaking experience is momentous, but there's no way oftelling one from the other until something happens andyou wake up, for example, and even then you've got aserious problem. So, I tried to show that all classical phi-losophical questions are like that; that you've got a differ-ence which is un-empirical; you can't tell the difference,and yet the difference is momentous in a certain way,and that's what got me going. I think that my positivistic

teachers felt that philosophy should be like science and itshould all be a matter of observation and verification asto whether something goes this way or that. But Ithought, all genuine philosophical distinctions are invisi-ble in that kind of way.

So as a philosopher of art as I started out to be, I had-n't taken myself to be that until these very exciting daysin the sixties, then I really saw this as an exciting ques-tion. But all of a sudden there was a problem and afterthat, I tried to say what the problem could have been. Forexample, when I began to look for a definition, I began to

think that one way of thinking about a work of art is thatit's got some kind of content; it's about something. Aboutthe Brillo box: I know what the content of a Brillo box is,it's virtually what the Brillo box contains; it's about Brillo,and you look at the outer decoration of the surfaces ofthe Brillo box and you discover that it really is a piece ofbrilliant rhetoric proclaiming the virtues of Brillo. But if Itried to say what his work was about, I might say, Well,

it's about the Brillo box. The Brillo box is about Brillo, buthis work was about the Brillo box, it had a differentmeaning. Maybe why he was doing something like mak-ing a facsimile of a Brillo box was because he was cele-brating commercial culture, celebrating everyday life,celebrating the commonsense world, or just celebrating,the way a boy who came from a very poor family cele-brating these delicious things that are available, likecanned soups and so forth. Whatever was in Warhol'smind, and for that one would have to do a certain amountof digging.

So it doesn't wear its meaning on its face the way theBrillo carton wears its meaning on its face. That was a

kind of beginning. And I poked along until I could find, asphilosophers have done since Plato, a set of necessaryconditions for something to be an art work. This was in amuch later book, The Transfiguration of the Common-place.

Alan Saunders: Inhis book, The Transfiguration ofthe Commonplace, Arthur Danto illustrates these issuesby way of Pierre Menard: Author ofThe Quixote, a shortstory by the Argentinean writer, Jorge Luis Borges.Menard is an early 20th century French writer who de-cides to rewrite a 16th century Spanish masterpiece, theDon Quixote of Miguel Cervantes.

Arthur C. Danto: What he actually did, nobody canquite figure out, but he produced a piece of prose that

corresponded word for word to the prose that Cervanteswrote in the 16th century. But as the writer of the storysays, 'His Spanish was quite affected, after all he wasdoing it in 16th century Spanish, whereas Cervanteshandled effortlessly the common speech of his time'. Andso he then begins to show how different these two indis-cernible pieces of writing are, and by the time you're fin-ished, you begin to realise what an extraordinary feat itwas that Pierre Menard had done. And I began to lookfor those kinds of examples, not in the visual arts neces-sarily, but in literature.A beautiful example I found in Nabokov's novel Pale Firewhere he talks about a poem by the American poet,

Robert Frost, which is called, Stopping by Woods on aSnowy Evening, and it ends with two lines:

But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

The last two lines are a repetition of one another. Andthen Nabokov says, The first one is a simple autobio-graphical statement, "Miles to go before I sleep". And thesecond one is a metaphysical utterance, "I have a lot todo before I die". It's a beautiful example of showing how

(See Is It Art?, page 10)


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(Is It Art? from page 9)two lines, although they read the same, just because oftheir position are making very different kinds of state-ments. So I think that phenomenon can be found in a lotof different places and there's nothing, so to speak, ty-pographically to distinguish the two lines, but there's adeep difference between them - as I thought there waswith Warhol. And I wasn't aware of this fact when I wrote

The Transfiguration of the Commonplace; it was pub-lished in 1981. But the Brillo box, the actual Brillo box,that Brillo boxes are shipped in, was designed by an ab-stract expressionist painter, a second generation ab-stract expressionist painter by the name of James Har-vey. He died very young but would have been in the nextgeneration of great American gestural painters, but as Isay, he died. But there's a photograph in which Warhol isshown giving Harvey one of the boxes that Harvey actu-ally designed. It is one of those ironies that it's almost asort of story that Borges could have written, that Harveydesigned this box, but his conception of art would havebeen inconsistent with even thinking of it as a work of art.

For him, to be a work of art meant, in 1964, '63,whenever he designed the box, a large splashy canvasand so forth. But I found, actually found, a photograph inwhich Harvey is shown kneeling in front of one of one ofhis expressionist paintings, holding the Brillo box up. It'sa very touching, very pathetic kind of story.

Alan Saunders: Once Andy Warhol has done what hedid with the Brillo box, does our relationship to actualBrillo boxes change?

Arthur C. Danto: It might. We've got to think aboutthem in a very different kind of way. We're going to thinkabout them as designed, and once we know they weredesigned by an artist we're going to say, 'Well of courseit's such a marvellous piece of visual rhetoric that only an

artist could have done it.' A friend of mine who did someresearch found an application for a grant that JamesHarvey made in answer to the question, 'How do youmake your living?' Basically, he said, 'I'm a part-timepackage designer'. But it's a brilliant design: it's red,white and blue, which of course in America are the col-ours of patriotism. And then there's a kind of river ofwhite that goes all the way around it, which gives you thesense of the world being cleaned and so forth. So you'reconnecting cleanliness with patriotism and almost mak-ing buying Brillo a patriotic duty and so forth. I mean it'san astonishing piece of work. But Warhol doesn't get anycredit for that at all, it was done by Harvey. He just cop-

ied it, but in copying it he was maybe doing somethingphilosophical paying tribute to this world of commonplaceobjects. After all, these products were designed to beconsumed; you have to choose some kind of a soap pador some kind of tomato juice, some kind of soup, and youmight as well pick the one that's most appealingly de-signed, which is what design's all about, that's what com-mercial art is. And then all these sudden visual virtues,you look at them as if they were art. Maybe Andy's boxinherits some of that beauty, I don't know, but most of theboxes he designed aren't particularly beautiful at all.

Alan Saunders: One of the problems here, if we takesay, the example of Pierre Menard. Supposing his DonQuixote had reached publication and I picked up a copyof it, without knowing that it was the Pierre Menard DonQuixote, rather than the Cervantes one, I wouldn't realisethat. Similarly, I might make a similar mistake with theAndy Warhol. So in order to admire the works in bothcases, the fictional one and the actual one, I do need

knowledge, in addition to what I can see in front of me.Arthur C. Danto: Yes, I do think that's important, that

when you pick it up and you start reading it you thinkyou're reading about an adult Spanish nobleman in LaMancha etc., and all his hallucinations and fantasies andso forth, and somebody says, 'Oh no, this was written bya 19th century Frenchman, a poet, a symbolist poet, andit's really about language, it's not about Spain at all',you'd say, 'But I would never have known that', and I'dsay, 'Well, no, but if you look on the copyright page, you'llsee that it's copyrighted 1897' - and so forth, and you'dhave to give it a very different interpretation. And sud-denly you realise, Well if that's true, we never know

whether we're in the presence of art or not. And thatreally is kind of amazing when you think about it.I began to have these experiences, I remember once Iwas out in California, I was invited to give a talk for someof our history students, and I walked past a classroomthat was being redone, and I thought to myself, How do Iknow that that's not just an installation? How do I knowthat's not a work of art that happens to consist of laddersand paint buckets and so forth? I could do some digging;I'd have to check it out. I mean if I went into the office ofsomebody and said, 'Is that a work of art or are you justredecorating the room or something?' they'd think I wasnuts, but that's the situation. And I love the idea that youmight be in the presence of art at any moment, and not

know it and then say, 'Suppose I were in the presence ofart, how different would it be?' Well in terms of appear-ance, not different at all, but in terms of meaning it wouldbe pretty different, and would be, as I say, momentouslydifferent. And you get all these funny situations that hap-pen. Somebody makes a work of art which consists of alot of cigarette butts and the janitor just throws it away. Imean that kind of thing has been happening in avant-garde art for a long time.

Alan Saunders: Who then determines whether a par-ticular object is a work of art? I mean is there some, as itwere, institution however informal, that's deciding on this,is the custodian of the knowledge, is providing the infor-

mation that we need to understand that something is awork of art?

Arthur C. Danto: Well, after my paper was published,there got to be a kind of institutional theory of art wherethere actually was proposed that the art world is an insti-tution, which makes determinations of that sort. Obvi-ously it's not like an election that's held, but there's a cer-tain grain of truth in it. That is to say, that Warhol's box

was art in 1964 only for a handful of people who hadbeen participating in a discussion which would have inc -

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The American Society of Contemporary Artists(ASCA) presents Individual Annual Awards,Memorial Awards, College Student Awards andGrants, as a means of recognizing superiorachievement in art. These awards are presented inhonor of your name, a fellow artist, friend, familyname or family member. The awards to differentartists each year are honors mentioned in their re-sumes during their entire careers, which means thename continues to be honored during the lifetime ofthe artist, and is an outstanding, ongoing tribute.

Please note, your heartfelt gift is 100% tax freeand will be presented in a fitting ceremony and re-ception on November 13th, 3 pm during this yearsexhibition celebrating ASCAs 93rd Birthday at theBroome Street Gallery, 498 Broome Street, NY.

So far this year, donations to the Individual An-nual Awards Fund have fallen behind the amountsdonated last year.

Please donate NOW, time is of essence!This Fund consists of the following categories:

BENEFACTORS: $500 to $999;SPONSORS: $100 TO $499;

DONORS: $10 to $99(Smaller gifts are combined).

We wish to thank all members and friends who

have made donations in 2009. The following is a listof donations to ASCA in 2010:

SPONSORS: Joanne Beaule Ruggles,Yanka Cantor, Gerda Roze, Samuel Rosen

Barbara Browner SchillerDONORS: Rose Sigal Ibsen, Joseph Anabile,

Judith de Zanger, Elvira Dimitrij, Estelle Levy,Annette Lieblein, Alan Roland,

Julie Joy Saypoff, Marilyn Weiss,

Please make out your check to

ASCA and mail it to:

Gerda Roze, Chair: Fund Raising3 Park Lane, 1-B

Mount Vernon, NY 10552

I have found, that among its other benefits,giving liberates the soul of the giver.

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ASCAsINDIVIDUAL ANNUAL AWARDS

luded I suppose, discussing the meaning of Duchamps,and for them, the Brillo box was a work of art whose timehad come, and would know what were the reasons, whatwas the history in virtue of which something like that be-came possible as art and so forth. And nobody who wasnot privy to that discussion would have been in any posi-tion to talk.

Alan Saunders: You take the view, don't you, that

now art is over, the history of art has ended.Arthur C. Danto: Well no; in a way I do, I did write a

fairly well-known paper called The End of Art; what Imeant really was it was a dramatic way of saying thatthere's no longer the possibility even of a direction. Ithink up until the sixties, it was possible to think of thehistory of art as an unfolding narrative and what we haveto do is to wait and see what's produced, and the nextseason, and the season after that, and everybody wouldbe interested in what's the next big thing and things likethat. Then suddenly, once you begin to get a situationwhere anything can be a work of art, but you can't tell inadvance whether you're in the presence of a work of art

or not, then at that point, there's no longer the possibilityof an unfolding narrative at all. And when anything ispossible, that seemed to me to be the end of things. Ididn't mean that people weren't going to go on makingart and the paper, The End of Art, was published I thinkin 1984. There's plenty of art that's been made sincethen, in fact probably more art's been made since 1984than had been made from the beginning of time until1984. So there's a lot of it around. But there's no longer, Ithink, as I wrote someplace, there'll be surprises, butthere won't be any philosophical surprises.

Alan Saunders: Arthur Danto, I've enjoyed our con-versation.

Arthur C. Danto: So did I, thanks a lot.

Alan Saunders: Thank you very much for joining us.Arthur C. Danto: You're altogether welcome

Some of the many books written by Arthur C. Danto;

Andy Warhol (Icons of America)The Transfiguration of the Commonplace:

A Philosophy of ArtThe Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the

Concept of ArtPhilosophizing Art: Selected Essays

After the End of Art

ASCA 93rd ANNUAL EXHIBITIONWHATS NEW?



http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Beauty-Aesthetics-Concept-Lectures/dp/0812695402/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-8http://www.amazon.com/Warhol-Icons-America-Arthur-Danto/dp/0300169086/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-3http://www.amazon.com/Transfiguration-Commonplace-Philosophy-Art/dp/0674903463/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-4http://www.amazon.com/Transfiguration-Commonplace-Philosophy-Art/dp/0674903463/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-4http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Beauty-Aesthetics-Concept-Lectures/dp/0812695402/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-8http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Beauty-Aesthetics-Concept-Lectures/dp/0812695402/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-8http://www.amazon.com/Philosophizing-Art-Selected-Arthur-Danto/dp/0520229061/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-11http://www.amazon.com/After-End-Art-Arthur-Danto/dp/0691002991/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/After-End-Art-Arthur-Danto/dp/0691002991/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/Philosophizing-Art-Selected-Arthur-Danto/dp/0520229061/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-11http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Beauty-Aesthetics-Concept-Lectures/dp/0812695402/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-8http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Beauty-Aesthetics-Concept-Lectures/dp/0812695402/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-8http://www.amazon.com/Transfiguration-Commonplace-Philosophy-Art/dp/0674903463/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-4http://www.amazon.com/Transfiguration-Commonplace-Philosophy-Art/dp/0674903463/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-4http://www.amazon.com/Warhol-Icons-America-Arthur-Danto/dp/0300169086/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287065943&sr=1-3


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ing shows.

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ASCA OFFICERSPresident Barbara Schiller

President-Emeritus Harriet FeBlandVice-President Raymond WeinsteinVice-President Raymond ShanfeldVice-President Frank Mann

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Recording Secretary Imelda Cajipe EndayaCorresponding Secretary Lisa RobbinsSocial Secretary Olga Kitt

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Hank Rondina, Fred Terna

ASCA NEWSLETTERPublication Director Hank Rondina

CONTRIBUTING WRITERSMichael J. Fressola -Staten Island Advance, Janet Indick, JimKelvin, Estelle Levy, Hank Rondina, The Philosopher's Zone

Alan Saunders , ABC Radio National 4 Mar.2006

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERSHank Rondina

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tion of this newsletter.

MEMBERSHIP NEWS

ASCA 93rd ANNUAL EXHIBITIONWHATS NEW




Elinore BucholtzAt the Red Brick Gallery 315 E. MainSt. Ventura, California Oct. 11 - Nov. 22.Linda Butti-Invited to exhibit by The Internal Committeeof the International Biennial of Contemporary Art in the8th edition of the Florence Biennale Dec. 2011. Flor-

ence, Italy- ALSOExhibiting at Fine Arts Gallery,Westchester Community College, Creativity Continues,

Oct. 9-Nov.16.-ALSOExhibited at Berkeley CollegeGallery II March 23- June 4, 2010 3 East 43 St, NYC.Rose-Marie Cherundolo-Exhibiting at Fine Arts Gallery,Westchester Community College, Creativity Continues,Oct. 9-Nov.16.

Mara de Echevarra-- Solo Exhibitoil and acrylic paint-ings at the 2/20 Gallery (220 West 16th Street, Chelsea)from Oct. 26 - Nov. 9, 2010. Opening receptions: Sat.Oct. 30 and Sat. Nov. 6 - 5-8 pm. Gallery hours: Tue.-Sun.2-7pm. Phone: 212-807-8348.Judith de Zanger- will exhibit four of her sculptures atthe Sackets Harbor Art Association in Upstate, NY June12th until October-ALSO- Andre and Judy de Zanger212.289.8856 The NEXT IDEA Creativity Conference inthe Berkshire Mountains Oct 22-24, 2010

www.CreativityInstitute.net for details.Harriet FeBland-- 52nd Solo Show, "The Geometry ofHarriet FeBland," celebrating the Interchurch Cen-ter's 50th year at the Interchurch Center, 475 RiversideDrive, N.Y. between 119th and 120th StreetsOct 28-Dec. 2, 2010 Reception Thur., Nov. 4th, 5 to 8 PM.ASCA members welcome- ALSO-Grounds for Sculp-ture Museum, Hamilton, N. J., Seward Johnson CenterFor the Arts, Jan.-Dec. 2010 - ALSO- Lessedra Gallery,Sofia, Bulgaria International Exhibit Dec.15, 2010-Feb.15, 2011- ALSO- Lessedra Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria,

Lessedra World Print Annual extended thru Sep. 2010Janet IndickSolo Exhibit Paintings & Sculpture at theTeaneck Public Library Sep. 1st - 30th( see gallery page)Rose Sigal Ibsen--Exhibited at the Tenri Cultural Inst. ofN.Y. In the Japanese Artist Association of New YorksAnnual Exhibition Sept. 13th-25th.Annette LiebleinExhibiting at Fine Arts Gallery,Westchester Community College, Creativity Continues,

Oct. 9-Nov.16.Basha MaryanskaThree Solo Shows: Krakow, Poland-ALSO-at the Gallery of the Council of Europe Stras-bourg, France - ALSO-Trieste, Italy- ALSO- at New Cen-tury Artists in Chelsea, NYC.Hank Rondina-Invited to exhibit by The Internal Commit-tee of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art inthe 8th edition of the Florence Biennale Dec. 2011. Flor-

ence, Italy- ALSOExhibiting at Fine Arts Gallery,Westchester Community College, Creativity Continues,Oct. 9-Nov.16Neva Setlowat the East End Arts Council in River-head, NY. Jul. 23-Aug. 27.

Lea WeinbergExhibited at Best Works MarionRoyael Gallery, Sept. 2010- ALSOUncommon SenseMarion Royael Gallery, Aug. 2010- ALSOWorld of Art-ists Howland Cultural Center, Beacon, NYDoris WymanSolo exhibit The Jemez Fine Arts Gal-lery, Jemez Springs, NM Aug. 6-19 (See gallery page.)
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Newsletter 40 Fall 2010