Willoughby Sharp

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Willoughby Sharp
Sharp in 2006
Born(1936-01-23)January 23, 1936
DiedDecember 17, 2008(2008-12-17) (aged 72)
Alma materBrown University (BA)
SpousePamela Seymour Smith Sharp
ChildrenSaskia Sharp
Willoughby Sharp in 1973
Willoughby Sharp 2002

Willoughby Sharp (January 23, 1936 – December 17, 2008) was an American artist, independent curator, independent publisher (he was co-founder and co-editor of Avalanche Magazine with

Impulse (1979–1981); Video magazine (1980–1982); Art Com (1984–1985), and the East Village Eye (1984–1986). He published three monographs on contemporary artists, contributed to many exhibition catalogues, and wrote on art for Artforum, Art in America
, Arts magazine, Laica Journal, Quadrum and Rhobo. He was editor of the Public Arts International/Free Speech documentary booklet in 1979. Sharp received numerous grants, awards, and fellowships; both as an individual or under the sponsorship of non-profit arts organizations.

Education

Sharp was born and raised in New York City. He received his BA from Brown University in 1957, where he studied art history. He then undertook graduate study in art history at the University of Paris (1957–58), the University of Lausanne (1958–59), finishing at Columbia University, where he studied under Meyer Schapiro.[3] Sharp wrote his graduate thesis on kinetic art.

Solo exhibitions

Beginning in 1969, Sharp had more than twenty solo exhibitions at museums, and art galleries such as:

Earth Art” exhibition that he curated at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art at Cornell University
. In March 1969, Sharp created “Einstein’s Eye,” a closed-circuit b/w video sculpture exhibited at the Richard L. Feigen Gallery in New York City.

Career

Sharp began his media work in 1967 by shooting films in

MoMA’s “INFORMATION” exhibition curated by Kynaston McShine. Also in 1970, Sharp curated “Body Works,” an exhibition of Video art with works by Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Terry Fox, Keith Sonnier, Dennis Oppenheim and William Wegman at Tom Marioni's Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, California. In 1971, Sharp created Points of View: A Taped Conversation with Four Painters, for Arts Magazine, a live interview with painters: Ronnie Landfield, Brice Marden, Larry Poons, and John Walker
.

Between 1970 and 1972, Sharp began work the on the “Videoviews”, a series of dialogues with artists using one of the first

Serkan Ozkaya
(conceptual artist) has been published under the title Have You Ever Done Anything Right? in English and Spanish, by Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien and Smart Art Press.

Sharp's video and film works are in the collections of the

ZKM (Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie) in Karlsruhe, Germany; The Collection of the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; The Museum of Fine Arts; the Rhode Island School of Design; the National Art Gallery in Ottawa; The Western Front in Vancouver
and in private collections worldwide.

Collaboration with Joseph Beuys

In 1958, Sharp met Joseph Beuys in Düsseldorf and maintained a close, collaborative relationship until Beuys' death in 1986. Sharp was influential in bringing Beuys’ work to the attention of the American art world. Starting with an Artforum interview (December, 1969), Beuys was also featured in the first issue of Avalanche magazine (1970). In 1972, Sharp produced the Beuys Videoview which constituted Beuys’ first solo show at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., N.Y. He also produced Public Dialogue in which Beuys performed as part of the Videoperformance exhibition Sharp curated din 1974. In 1974, at Beuys’ request, Sharp videotaped I Like America, America Likes Me, his performance at the Rene Block Gallery, New York City, which has been released as America (1974–2003). In 1979, Beuys invited Sharp to curate the film/video sections of his retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and while Beuys was in New York, Sharp suggested he visit and support the turmoil around The Real Estate Show and even took Beuys to the Mudd Club one night.[5]

Teaching career

Sharp taught on the faculties of the

Parsons The New School for Design, Graduate Faculty, Digital Design Department, N.Y. (2000–2003).[6]

Curatorial work

Beginning in 1964, Sharp curated numerous exhibitions, including:

Front cover, LUMINISM exhibition catalogue, 1967
  • 1967 LUMINISM, The Artists Club, NY. Catalogue.
  • 1968–1969 AIR ART, Arts Council, YM/YWHA, Philadelphia, PA; traveled to: Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH; Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois; University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA; Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH; Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Catalogue.
  • 1968 KINETICISM: SYSTEMS SCULPTURE IN ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATIONS (Official Olympic Games Exhibition), University Museum of Arts and Science, Mexico City, Mexico. Catalogue.
  • 1969 EARTH ART, Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Catalogue.
  • 1969 PLACE & PROCESS, The Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta, Canada. No catalogue.
  • 1970 BODY WORKS an exhibition of Video art presented at Tom Marioni's Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, California.
  • 1970 THIS IS YOUR ROOF exhibition is presented at the international art festival held in Pamplona, Spain.
  • 1971 PIER 18, a site/non-site exhibition on an abandoned Pier on Manhattan's West Side.[7]
  • 1971 Vito Acconci, Claim, 93 Grand Street, NY. Performance.
  • 1971 William Beckley, 93 Grand Street. Performance
  • 1971 Terry Fox, Yeast, 93 Grand Street, NY. Videotaped performance.
  • 1973 JOSEPH BEUYS, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., NY. Beuys’ first show in the U.S. No catalogue.
  • 1973 AVALANCHE DIE ENTWICKLUNG EINER AVANTGARDE-ZEITSCHRIFT, Cologne Kunstverein; traveled to: Hanover Kunstverein; Munster Kunstverein; Frankfurt Kunstverein. No catalogue.
  • 1974 VIDEOPERFORMANCE, 112 Greene Street, Gallery, NY. Catalogue: Avalanche magazine Issue Number 9.
  • 1979–1980 Joseph Beuys, Guggenheim Retrospective, curated the film/video section. Catalogue.
  • 1984 Joseph Nechvatal, Machine Language Book by Willoughby Sharp, 74 pages
  • 1988–1991 WILLOUGHBY SHARP GALLERY.[8]
  • 1988 Lawrence Weiner, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston Rhode Island. No catalogue.
  • 1989 Joan Jonas, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston Rhode Island. No catalogue.
  • 1990 MICROSCULPTURE, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. Catalogue.
  • 1990 Adrian Piper, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. No catalogue.
  • 2003 POLARITIES, The Lobby Gallery, 1155 Avenue of the Americas, NY. Brochure.
  • DAAD Berlin grant with Pamela Seymour Smith, (2006)
  • Emily Harvey Foundation artists-in-residence grant with Pamela Seymour Smith (2006)
  • ACE award
    (1986)
  • Department of Communications,
    Canadian Government
    (1981)
  • Canada Council, Explorations Department, (1981)
  • National Endowment for the Arts (1976–1978, 1980–1981)
  • New York State Council on the Arts (1975–1977, 1979, 1985)
  • Rockefeller Foundation individual artists grant (1971)

Body of work

References

  1. ^ name="Frieze profile obit">Larsen, Lars Bang (January 2009). "Profiles: Willoughby Sharp, 23 January, 1936–12 December, 2008". Frieze. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  2. ^ "Avalanche". Primary Information. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
  3. ^ Fox, Margalit (31 December 2008). "The New York Times". Willoughby Sharp, 72, Versatile Avant-Gardist, Is Dead. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
  4. ^ [1] Willoughby Sharp at MoMA
  5. OCLC 972429558
    .
  6. ^ "Willoughby Sharp Biography". people.wcsu.edu. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  7. ^ Harry Shunk Projects: Pier 18 (First ed.). Nice: Musee D'art Moderne et D'art Contemporain. 1992. pp. 11, 15.
  8. ^ "Legendary Willoughby Sharp Gallery Storefront Rediscovered on Spring Street".

External links

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