ANDY WARHOL
my talking, unnil they say. Shur up,"
and then I srart thinking which can
get you in trouble, too. What I am
ying is nor high-handed When I
criticize, I am never talking about
anybody orer, in particular
achally-onl myelf.. except for
my imaginerion or your....ridine
on a train.the lost and found
when I gor there...Um, then,
February 20, 1969..the end of
criticim which she recalls in e serious
gticle about criticiam she says, "T'm
critie my self plants and
mountains .. they re all in my
head. .non
a picture postcard.
an original and I suppose it's
tnue criticism lustrates
alking about it talking about
ourselves for a change whatever
we're talking ebout is ourselrer...
how everyone else is doing it...
didn? mean to be called a critic in
the first place. three years ago I
said thar I wes a cryptic.. what I
started off wes et a dance-lover jusr
Mke that. long story
iterature aspect of it
.the
dancer
long before I was e tnie book nut...
atth ough I read plenty of book stuff
long before I was an athelete and a
Those were just
selections that I ceme across There
are a few, questions ther I would ike
to ask the panel on topics thar I hope
we will touch upon tonigh, one of
which is, wh-they re all so confusing
dancer.
wh, wh, oh, one it "How Objective
Can Crinicism Be, Anyway?" um
When Mist Johnston made thit
shift from third person to first
person, wh, was she really in on
am, and uh
things she dorsn7 wont to-1 forgot
the vision where is the vision
Awh, in 1965, wh, she was under
intensive care for, uh, for visions
she had a- Paul: Fery good
something new
Andy Warhol Factory Foto
David: who has been reviewing
dence for the Pillage Voice for ten
yeart Um. in the beginning Miss
Johnston restricted herself to feirly my mfied as anyone else Um, those
rou nine dance reviewt. Uh., after aProple in thar marvelout litle irorynever takes bways so she spared use c ll in e rece against a
David:
was doing wnining under this Dance
Column. The Villege Voice wer a
her September 16 column in 1965 in
which she wrote, "Criticiam working
out is like riding a bike up and down
...she wrote thet. "one
telling ws how she got there. what
aspect of my vision-in
quoter-"one aspect of my vision is
in the form of a command to
phantom juder I take e plot of relinquish the role of pudge."I hope
that we will get on to that topic leter
and perhaps discus her trip to Ann
Arbor, via Houston, Sante
Berbare. Lh, I would elso ike to
ank members of the panel whether
they think Min Johnston represents,
wh, future crinicim and what sort of
criticim we can look forward to, and
wh- did want to make e few
happened to her on the wer, her
trouble with the taxi driver. um-she
ahort time, wh, she brenched our to. tower orer on Sheriden Square who
wh. pare more uncomventionel
puraits Um, she was one of the first
to recognize and write about the new
forms of the medium, was one of the
earliest and imost symperhetic
interpreters of Happenings in the
theatre. Her
en intrgral part in the derelopment
ther-um she obviously saw hrr own
travelling to and from the theatre as level territory and stake out a claim
lie down on it, and crinicize
constellerion if thar's what I hapepen
to be lookinr at I abo stake out e
are so aware of what's going on
ecross the street from them,. umcqually importent es any of the t
um-it took them a couple of yearschoreography thet she ostensibly
to catch on to the fect that Jill really
we7 reriewing dence et all Around meny of the prople here are cleim to be an tist- writier
1966 or 1967 they decided afterinterested in Miss Johnston's personal
months of contemplanion to change
the title of her cohmn. They decided calls over the lest few weeks to, uh.something well enough to sey what I
to call it Dance Journel-anget certain fects on her, but I think I
went to reiew I don 't know how
ther's what I'm doing when I get to
biography. I're mede several phone the typewriter and decide thet I Nike
itical writings pleved
think it's all abour." Um, 1968 she
end flowering of the Judson Dance hious wond thet dorsn't sound in thet for mow Um I would said. " ake to think the critic is a
remarks abour the merirs and
demerits of crinieism, but I think I
let thet pan for now I'm nre it will
come our soon enough. So, I
like To sry that, um, wh,-ebout her corporate sensibility Ideelly the
writing-it really i quite, uh. critic would be a transparent medium
never really specialized in so-called
avant-gerde or underground
actirities never felt comnelled tod
worry about what wes going to be
the going thing during the coming
Sreson, uh,-in fect she wer often
uneware of wher was ostensibly
avant-garde. The reason that we do
par so mwch ertention to her
tomight and erery night-is that her
past writings hare prored to be so
as if ir has anything to do with
riticism at all. Um. so we're here to
discuss the personal and professional real-her writing tyle is compareble giving off vopors of idras and
egration, um um-/ begin to water from a faucet. Um, she temsopinions, constantly clesping to itsinterview the panel beginning from
my left Ar my extreme left we
have-this ise very distinguished
panel by the way MOt 4
distinguished as the audience-we
have to distinguish ourselves-at our
extreme left we have Welter Gutman
Walter received a great deal of
the personaf first. ould a dur er the Voice end, um, efter a
body the streams of comments of
cocktail parties To mean exacrly
it on a few hours before her column
-meybe I
probebly more
couple of hours she turns it off Uh.whar you say that I mean, is to say
begin with professional, um, oh, wm
well Aenvally, she began wrining she mekes very few revisions. In her
this autobiography, um sparing usc
very little of her personel life, though Yow might get the impression that
not giving us enough of the deteils so
thar I mean exactly what you sey
, or any other
wariations on the phnase expressing
the usion of the single mentality
that you mean
column she talks abour notebooks
she takes notes Uh, I have seen her
prophetic thar we can'r really imore really meke sense out of her column w bonk, elthough she it
Aer Howerer, during recent vears,
her writing has become
increasingly-erotic. Her writing has
becume increesinglr congrsted inprople's beharior ar paries and hermany of the people here know all
rle. extremely subjective inPerceptive conements on English about her stvle, so I won't go into
contewt, enorwowaly subtuitows in its
loric. It wowld appear thot she har
disintegrated personally end
professionglly on an enormors scale.
Quite lme apo as long aro as I can
Prcall in fact she certed fenling an
obligetion to renort on dce
comeertt Lur, mo one can Mame her inglar As she began wrininr abouti now thar it ise 7 whar ir was to
fer not ogwrag to waste her time
the Jame end notoriety a few years back
which caused him to be profled in
I am
Collecting marbles, and
Um, uh. her writing around the uuelly writing down rery elementary
wid Sixties begaw to include her things ike. wh. "Max"-M A-X
sharply critical observations of apostrophe-S U, presume that
critic is a scaenger of the junk gater
of the mind, strung our from house
the New Yorker magezine
to house in the Telepathy of rery happy to say have been
-1
connected-connecting clotheslines,eprinted by Grove Press
sorting our sigmals, selecting and received my copy two days aro-a
I recommend it
rvellous book
cathedrals anmd lesbian mories and
any mumber of other ubiecrs thet
eppeal to her She gave up any gire her one of its dubiousproblem You coan see that she real reason Walter wes chosen for this
pretense of the third-person achievement awerds. giring her the
detachment that charecterizes most
personal writing and began making
intensire usr of the first-person
har, because I would like to mentión
that Esquire megezine last veer did
conjecting, separating the pages beck
fogether is simply a compositional you all-look at it-Welter is-the
received ten dollars on that cobemn panel it that he was a former ars
Um, in Norember 7, 1968, she wrote. crinie fifty or sixty years ago, and
"Oh. Shwt Up"Prize for the sentence
which reads. "Telling it Mke it is"
means Yelline it Nke it wes and how
um alho a painter and a filmmeker
"One of my preferences is to write
about single things for each column whose career in 10 colled
ike to work out a single thing into eunderground films goes beck
mess of stuff about that single thine. next to Walter is Lil Picard, an grtir
I'm not crazy about trying to make eand writer and art critic of the East
single thing out of e mess of stuff Village Other
Nor am 1...." Paul: Ne na na ne Happenings lately and is
rery good David: One of her most destructionist are and street works
luminating
her incredible life in weektr the I Now Peonle" Um t dom
installments, she rerealed to us have-I spent the last months going
cliff-henger sich as we hed nor seen throuph Jll Johnston'y columes, and
since he Perils of Paubne Um, her hare recalled a few sentences that
witing had aluers tended toward the
sibjectine and in retrosprct it was
alwars entobiographical She bject which clarifies what follows appeared this yerer-Jonugry 20. fescinatine show for this week's East
conldn't reriew cohcert withourlater Uh, the first one was wrirten in
Ld has done many
rertewing the great wumber of
corenional dance comcerts ther
take place in de city. Howrer. her
coluts hod, wh, so ittle to do with
Janer eren the rather fer. fer-ot
daner that she had promoted that i
Avcoe quesioneble u what e
into
she has written on crinicism and P
she has written
pieces on criticism
wowld ike to read them It's a timely
1969 enjor telking for the sake of Village Other which some of you
may have soon Itting to the
