White Columns

White Columns

XX

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

what the hell, why not rename it the matthew higgs society a la 3pl candie? since it's all about him?

Colin's Ghost said...

Artist's Space is better.

Anonymous said...

Never walked in the door since M Higgs took over. Don't think I ever will.

Anonymous said...

Me neither. No reason to go, your emerging artist friends won't be in many shows there any longer, now you'll only find his friends showing in a completely irrelevant and arbitrary environment without a mission any longer.

Anonymous said...

Matthew Higgs is great. He takes art that I would never even consider looking at and presents it in a way that makes me interested.

c garger said...

Dec 16th sounds like one of his buddies.

Anonymous said...

Arist Space became useless decades ago. They got involved in the AIDS battle and forgot their mission. Besides they have no money either and should be listed on the death watch for sure.

White Columns was great because of you-know-who, but now why bother except to have images on line, etc...

Dec 16th is Higgs.

Anonymous said...

The original incarnation of WC - 112 Greene Workshop is reopening downstairs at 112 Greene in late March. Exactly like the original, the first show is street artists who have painted on bits of wood, glass, the ceiling, walls, coat racks, old cabinetry ... Gordon Matta- Clark and Jeffrey Lew would have been proud.

Anonymous said...

I think it's funny that White Columns simultaneously rejects me from their online Curated Artist Registry and sends me a link to Jerry's Saltz's article "Down with the Cube." It glorifies Jeffrey Lew as the artist-founder of White Columns--a “socialist art system” with “no administration” or “political interests” where the “doors never locked.” Apparently "artists could come in and say they wanted a show, and have one" but now artists are rejected in droves from their stupid online gallery by Matthew Higgs. Well I guess I'll just have to accept that Matthew Higgs doesn't deem my work worthy of their registry after "personally reviewing" it. I'm sure he gave it a lot of time and consideration; mulling it over for the 7 months it took to get back to me. Time to reset that demon meter again, huh, Jerry? Too bad it seems that in the last 40 years, this WHITE Columns has forgotten that a gallery is supposed to be "a test site, not a store"... and not an avenue to reject young artists without giving them a fair critique or reason why.

Anonymous said...

Artists could indeed come in and have a show at 112 Greene ... often never even asking for Lew's permission but literally just hanging their work.

Anonymous said...

I was in a show here. I submitted slides, I was contacted for an interview, and immediately got a studio visit. A year, or year and a half later, I was included in a group show. The show got reviewed. At that time, ALL artists exhibited at White Columns were selected from the submissions. Now they no longer maintain the registery, so what is the criteria for curating? It's not from the submissions because WC doesn't look at them any longer.

Anonymous said...

Sent in slides back when they were supposedly still accepting them. Packet was sent back unviewed 1.5 years later (no exaggeration) with photocopied note saying they only accept work submitted via their website (although to this day their website's submission guidelines suggest otherwise: "In order to be considered for the registry, you must first submit work digitally or with a mail-in slide or video submission"). Now, two years later, I've grudgingly re-submmitted via their absurdly tiny (max height 350 pixels?!) digital format. Not holding my breath...

Anonymous said...

White Column’s recent 40-year survey included a number of now-celebrated artists who got their first big break when the gallery accepted their unsolicited proposals. Some of these unsolicited proposals were proudly displayed on the gallery walls next to the art. Yet today White Columns doesn’t look at unsolicited proposals from individual artists. Does anyone else notice a disconnect here?

Anonymous said...

This strain of comments is ridiculous. Matthew Higgs has supported young artists in New York tirelessly and since his time there has shown hundreds of artists and raised the profile of White Columns internationally.
It seems that those most keen on criticizing him are bitter artists who haven't been shown there. I'd wager that many of the complainers wouldn't turn down an exhibition with him.

Anonymous said...

I submitted work via their online form in 2005 and JUST got a rejection e-mail. Hilarious and sad. Why do they even bother pretending?

Anonymous said...

Although it seems that White Columns as a working gallery has little validity in the artworld anymore when I get their emails (I'm in the file and had a show there when Lauren Ross was the curator)I still find myself extremely pissed off that this place continues to exist as the Matthew Higgs Show and the board does nothing to stop it. He is clearly using our good old White Columns for his own puffery, considerably short-sighted interests and narrow and uninventive curating.

Anonymous said...

love white columns. and paid on time.

Anonymous said...

He took off any mention of exhibitions on the White Columns site prior to 2004, the year he started. That is really pathetic. It's like the first 33 years never happened. I was in a curated group show there and now it's treated as irrelevant because it was before his tenure. There used to be a link to the show. He has no sense of history and he mostly shows artists that have commercial galleries and that are already established.

Anonymous said...

Spoke with a big time collector / financial donator at a recent opening, who said she received the rudest letter from Matthew Higgs asking for money. The letter was ALL about him and HIS accomplishments. She was so turned off that she said she will no longer be donating to White Columns. Make of this what you will.