MEDIUM COOL
Four Painters on Alex Katz
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD (1941–2022)
Reflecting on Vivienne Westwood’s extraordinary achievements
Naked and Famous
Hiji Nam around downtown Manhattan
Peel Slowly and See
T. J. Clark’s impressions of Cézanne out of time
The Misfits
Two fashion labels unraveling Asian identity
Nick Irvin
Gentle Wind Project and the art of alternative healing
}
}
}
PRINT March 1984
BOB COLESCOTT AIN’T JUST MISBEHAVIN'
Lowery S. Sims
The humor is the bait. It’s the price you pay to get in.1
—Joe Lewis, 1982
ALTHOUGH ROBERT COLESCOTT’S WORK is impelled by one overriding purpose—to interject black people into Western art—an important component of his art is consistent with the satirical approach. If we perceive a marked defensiveness in such a stance, a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude regarding official “culture,” then we can have a handle on Colescott’s work. His esthetic affinities are with Dada, Surrealism, and Pop art; the prediction of the phenomenon that Marcia Tucker isolated as “bad painting” is key. The politics are