Peter Plagens
A provocative critic and painter reflects on 50 years in the art world
Self-described curmudgeon and esteemed critic Peter Plagens talks to us about his 50-year career as both an artist and writer. Early on he befriended renegade multimedia maestro Bruce Nauman, who later became the subject of his monograph, Bruce Nauman: The True Artist (Phaidon, 2014)—a friendship that involved such things as playing in the same basketball league and running on a treadmill in Nauman’s studio as part of a video project.
Plagens talks to us about his day-to-day life as a critic for ARTforum, Newsweek, and, most recently, the Wall Street Journal (even though he’s not a Republican and almost has “apoplexy” when he reads the editorial page). As our slideshow this week attests, he is also an adventurous painter, who shows regularly at Nancy Hoffmann, but his advice to younger artists is blunt: “Don’t be a critic.”
Music credit: “Odyssey” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/
Love to hear 50 year career talk.
Have loved Peter’s writing for several decades, mostly in ARTforum. But I’m less enthusiastic about the paintings I see here. I think I’ve seen earlier work that I liked much better.
Remembering Plagens from Art Forum in the 60’s , it was most entertaining to listen to his comments and experiences into the present. At age seventy four now, what a circuitous path and
remarkable talent ! Great interview, Ann “mucho gracias”. m. oliver
Another engaging and fascinating interview from a writer I have admired since his ARTforum days. Thank you for creating dialogues that open up these provocative conversations!