Rand's blues - Letters - Letter to the Editor

To the Editors:

I am writing to correct a mistake that Raphael Rubinstein made in "Whose 1980s?" [A.i.A., Dec '03] I did not "borrow the title" of Jay McInerney's 1984 novel for a present to view I organized that year at the Phyllis Kind Gallery. "Bright Lights, Big City" is the title of a canticle by Jimmy Reed (1925-1976). Re who recorded for Vee-Jay, was single of the few black sky-coloreds musicians whose records appeared upon the pop charts, making him popular with a white audience. His best-known dittys include "Honest, I Do," "You Don't Have to Go" and "Big Bos Man."

I chose the title in question because I included an example from Archie Rand's series "The alphabetic character Paintings" (1967-71) in this collection show consisting largely of harsh urban views. As a critic who has championed Archie Rand [see "8 Painters: of recent origin Work," A.i.A., Nov. '03] and has upon a number of occasions called attention to his alphabetic character paintings, Mr. Rubinstein knows that in these works Rand used a variety of tools to write without the names of black musicians, singers and composer as well as the titles of canzonets ranging from doo-wop tunes to jazz compositions. "Bright Lights, Big City" was the first of recent origin York exhibition to contain single of Rand's Letter paintings. A year earlier, Jack Lane had shown a small selection from the series at the Carnegie Institute. I reviewed that exhibition for Artforum, the first time these works were discussed in a magazine.

John Yau

of recent origin York

Raphael Rubinstein replies:

I thank John Yau for alerting me to the correct source of this show's title and for clarifying more [i]or[/i] less details about an important material substance of work, I'm actually relieved to hear that Yau's "Bright Lights, Big City" came from the Jimmy Re ballad rather than from McInerney's flimsy novel. I wish I'd seen the exhibit It wasn't until 1988, also at Phyllis Kind, that I first meetinged some of Rand's paintings, his series "Self Portraits After Rilke's 'Sonnets to Orpheus.'"

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group