As the Cedar Tavern played a role in the formation of abstract expressionism, Max’s Kansas City galvanized a younger generation of artists from when it opened in 1965 to when it closed its doors in 1974. This exhibition will feature the amazing diversity of artists from every major reference point in the New York art world of the period: Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual and Performance Art - a creative efflorescence rarely seen in art history.
Max’s Kansas City was a social venue where ideas could be thrown out, tested and formed. But a salient distinction was signaled to the art world at Max’s as important new art was installed; and the art was a “permanent installation”, as Donald Judd phrased it, rather than a changing show. John Chamberlain’s galvanized iron sculpture imposed itself dramatically at the entrance while Dan Flavin’s bold red florescent sculpture defined the corner of the back room and cast a glow over the entire space. Frank Stella’s large abstract painting dominated the side wall, while the frame of Dorothea Rockburne’s folded paper collage gathered nicotine above the bar and Forrest (Frosty) Myers’ laser beam ran from the front window to a mirror on the juke box and then across the entire restaurant to the back room.
The commitment at Max’s to the current generation was communicated and understood by everyone in the bar, and it prompted the idea that this was the locus of serious art talk and thought. At the front of Max’s stood owner Mickey Ruskin. Regulars included John Chamberlain, James Rosenquist, Larry Rivers, Larry Poons, and Robert Rauschenberg.
In the back room Andy Warhol held court with his entourage of film and factory people including Brigid Berlin, snapping Polaroid pictures and making audio-tapes of conversation. Hard drinking “heavy hitters”, in contrast to the clientele in the back room, gave off an aura of testosterone in the front room. The virtual hegemony of men there prompted the appellation “hetero-holics”. Women artists nevertheless were seen at Max’s, including Dorothea Rockburne, Lynda Benglis, and Alice Aycock.
In this exhibition, we attempt to recreate with curatorial accuracy the art that hung in Max’s and that artists traded with Mickey for bar tabs. Increasingly this art is seen to rank with the most extraordinary periods of history in centuries.
Acconci, Vito
Andre, Carl
Aycock, Alice
Bell, Larry
Benglis, Lynda
Berlin, Brigid
Bladen, Ronald
Chamberlain, John
Christensen, Dan
De Kooning, Willem
Dzubas, Friedel
Flavin, Dan
Held, Al
Judd, Donald
Kosuth, Joseph
Myers, Frosty
Piper, Adrian
Poons, Larry
Rauschenberg, Robert
Rivers, Larry
Rockburne, Dorothea
Rosenquist, James
Smithson, Robert
Stella, Frank
Warhol, Andy
Weiner, Lawrence
Williams, Neil
Zox, Larry
This project has been organized by Maurice Tuchman for Loretta Howard Gallery
Interviews with many prominent artists by noted video documentary filmmaker Bill Maynes will be on view in the Gallery.
Loretta Howard Gallery’s exhibition runs simultaneously with Steven Kasher Gallery’s exhibition Max’s Kansas City which will feature over 100 vintage and modern photographs and large-scale sculptures and paintings by some of the artists of Max’s Kansas City. The exhibition will be accompanied by the launch of the book, Max’s Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll by Steven Kasher with an afterword by Lou Reed (Abrams Image; September 2010) Stephen Kasher Gallery is located at 521 West 23rd St, New York.