Peter Plagens
American journalist / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Peter Plagens?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Peter Plagens (born 1941) is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City.[1][2][3] He is most widely known for his longstanding contributions to Artforum[4] and Newsweek (senior writer and art critic, 1989–2003),[5] and for what critics have called a remarkably consistent,[6] five-decade-long body of abstract formalist painting.[7] Plagens has written three books on art, Bruce Nauman: The True Artist (2014),[8] Moonlight Blues: An Artist's Art Criticism (1986)[9] and Sunshine Muse: Modern Art on the West Coast, 1945-70 (1974),[10] and two novels, The Art Critic (2008)[11] and Time for Robo (1999).[12] He has been awarded major fellowships for both his painting (John Simon Guggenheim Foundation,[13] National Endowment for the Arts) and his writing (Andy Warhol Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts).[14][15] Plagens's work has been featured in surveys at the Museum of Modern Art,[16] Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Whitney Museum, and PS1, and in solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Las Vegas Art Museum.[17][1] In 2004, the USC Fisher Gallery organized and held a 30-year traveling retrospective of his work.[15] Critics have contrasted the purely visual dialogue his art creates—often generating more questions than answers—with the directness of his writing;[18] they also contend that the visibility of his bylines as a critic has sometimes overshadowed his artmaking—unduly.[2][19][7] Los Angeles Times critic David Pagel described Plagens's painting as a "fusion of high-flying refinement and everyday awkwardness" with an intellectual savvy, disdain for snobbery and ungainliness he likened to Willem de Kooning's work.[6] Reviewing Plagens's 2018 exhibition,[20] New York Times critic Roberta Smith called the show an "eye-teasing sandwich of contrasting formalist strategies," the hard-won result of a decade of focused experimentation.[2]
Peter Plagens | |
---|---|
Born | 1941 (age 82–83) Dayton, Ohio, U.S. |
Education | Syracuse University University of Southern California |
Known for | Painting, drawing, art criticism |
Style | Abstract |
Spouse | Laurie Fendrich |
Website | Peter Plagens |