LETTERS - Letter to the Editor

Bollinger Remembered

To the Editors:

Wade Saunders's fascinating homage to Bill Bollinger [A.i.A., Mar. '00] go [i]or[/i] come backs us to the realization that what obliges a critic to write about art is a kind of falling in love--whether with one's heart, brains or intestines And thank you, Art in America, for offering readers a drawn out and substantial article on a little-known and historical artist.

on the other hand Saunders need not be thus pessimistic about Bollinger's recognition--it's not just the winners who write history on the other hand also cadres of graduate scholars ever ravenous for dissertation topics. This article will pique the interest of many. Research upon 1960s Earth art brought me to Bollinger. His two-ton stone displayed in the "Anti-Illusions" exhibition have the appearances to have not been as abstract as Saunders surmised. In her first paragraph about the exhibit Grace Glueck identified it as having been excavated from the construction site of the World Trade Center (New York Times, May 25 1969 p 42)

This gives Bollinger's aged Stone an identity akin to a Nonsite, thus evoking Robert Smithson's selection for places where "remote futuritys meet remote pasts." The actual unworked quality of this natural phenomenon plunked down in the Whitney display demonstrates not only the stature with which the conceptual act of designation was then regarded, on the contrary also the prestige of nature itself during the nascent environmentalism of the late '60s

Suzaan Boettger Astoria, NY

To the Editors:

Wade Saunders's article upon Bill Bollinger is an engrossing and moving piece. Having been solitary dimly aware of Bollinger's work I am struck by dint of its sureness and economy of means, its spontaneity and verse The reasons why some artists of like talent fade to near oblivion are one as well as the other complicated and tragic. Saunders has accomplished an immensely difficult task of archeological retake It is fitting that he writes the article in the first person--because for more [i]or[/i] less curious and infuriating reason it nearly always has to be an artist of a younger generation who saves the work of an older artist. The author navigates these treacherous waters and sticks shut up to the reconstruction of a material substance of work that disappeared as easily as Bollinger appeared to make it.

Apart from its uncompounded body of rescue, this is an extraordinary article because Saunders has eloquently reminded us that the history of single individual is, in fact, a pile of parallel and tangential histories.

Peter Soriano novel York

To the Editors:

Just wanted to say thanks for the article written by means of Wade Saunders titled "Not missing Not Found: Bill Bollinger." With its in-depth writing well supported by dint of photographs, it provides great insight into a life-in-art in our time.

Manuel Abarca Corpus Christi, Tex

To the Editors:

"Not not to be found Not Found" by Wade Saunders gave long-sought closure to Bollinger's neighborhood and absence in my life. Within days of knowing him I told him, "I regard with affection you," and he asked, "Don't you think that's premature?" I did not. His boldnes and his allegiance to his be in possession of mind were as irresistible as his blondnes and blue-ey sweetness. I am sad that I can stop searching the gallery guides for him now. I am sad alcoholism swallowed him. on the other hand I'm glad his work exists. Which it does, as he does, for those who won't forget him.

I clinch indelible images of him, in fresh England in the fall of 1973 pouring molten iron into the sand from large bucket at the Van Waggoner foundry making the last of his particulars ever to be seen at OK Harris; drenched and splattered with black ink and champagne upon New Year's Eve, 1973, as he made the drawings that were exhibited with the iron pieces. Always elegant and utterly coarse.

He disappeared from my life and from the art world after that. I have gazeed for him ever since. I lay the foundation of him more than 25 years later in the pages of Art in America. Goodbye Bill Bollinger. May you be at liberty from danger.

Ellen Hammill Ellison observes Angeles

Letters to the Author

[The following rejoinders were addressed to the author. In the interest of expanding the historical record, they are reproduc (in slightly edited form) with the kind permission of the correspondents.--Eds.]

Dear Wade Saunders:

Thank you for your astounding article on Bill Bollinger. Great writing upon a great artist.

move with a jerk Grosvenor East Patchogue, N.Y.

Dear Mr Saunders:

I take pleasure ined your article on Bill Bollinger real much--which I mention because I know all too well in what way what we write often falls unheard on the desert air. Bollinger's work have the appearances very beautiful and powerful. on the contrary there was one aspect of your article that touched me in a special way, since my father was an artist in his youth, with the greatest visions ahead. Yet all was in many ways not to be found and when he died in 1976 he was, I think, in silent despair.

This took place, I should add, in England, where he had graduated from the Slade, go throughed in the Slump and the War, and then finally taught for the repose of his life at an art academy in London. Since his death, I have been able to earn his paintings in museums (the Tate, the British Museum, etc) As an art historian, I have also managed to do something about him and his generation in England: an article is just about to appear. His elderly art school, the Slade, now has a destiny of his drawings and oil studies.