Gregory Battcock

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Gregory Battcock (1937-1980) was an American art historian, art critic, and painter from New York CityYoung, Vernon, I’ve Been Reading These Film Critics, Hudson Review 21 (Summer, 1968) pp. 337-344 who wrote a series of Dutton paperbacks that anthologized critical writings on new art tendencies in contemporary art, such as Minimalism, Conceptual Art,Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions, October 55 (Winter 1990) pp. 105–43 Video Art,[https://www.artforum.com/columns/gregory-battcock-232733/] Gregory Battcock by Douglas Davis at Artforum April 1981 VOL. 19, NO.8 and Super Realism.[https://www.artforum.com/features/transformer-gregory-battcock-200852/] TRANSFORMER: GREGORY BATTCOCK By David Joselit at Artforum His first anthology, The New Art, was published in 1966 and revised in 1973.David Weinberg, Blood of a Critic: Gregory Battcock’s Rise to Stardom and Fall from Grace, Soho News, October 13, 1981 Idea Art: A Critical Anthology, about conceptual art, was his most impactful book.The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 33, Issue 1, Autumn 1974, Pages 109–111, https://doi.org/10.2307/42896, 01 September 1974

Life and career

Battcock attended Michigan State University, the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, and Hunter College. He earned his Ph.D. from New York University in 1978 with a dissertation titled Constructivism and Minimal Art: Some Aesthetic, Theoretical and Critical Correlations.Crimp, Douglas, Yvonne Rainer, Muciz Lover, Grey Room no. 22 (Winter, 2006) pp. 48-67

He wrote frequently for the art magazines Art & Artists and Domus.[https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/gregory-battcock-papers-10960/biographical-note] Gregory Battcock papers, 1952-circa 1980 Battcock taught fine art at William Paterson College{{Cite web |last=Russell |first=John |date=January 16, 1981 |title=ART PEOPLE; The ride-by subway mural. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/16/arts/art-people-the-ride-by-subway-mural.html |access-date=November 13, 2024 |website=New York Times}} and was art critic for the New York Free Press. In the late 1960s and early-’70s, Battcock contributed columns on art and life to tabloids such as Gay and the New York Review of Sex.

He was editor-in-chief of Arts Magazine (1973-1975). In 1977 he co-published the tabloid Trylon & Perisphere with Ron Whyte that included satiricart criticism and soft-core eroticism. He appeared in the Andy Warhol films Eating Too Fast, Horse, and Batman Dracula.Henry, Garritt. “Whole Picture.” ''Art International’' #15 (December 1971) p. 89

Battcock was murdered in Puerto Rico on December 25, 1980.{{Cite web |title=Police have no clues in slaying of critic - UPI Archives |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/12/26/Police-have-no-clues-in-slaying-of-critic/2736346654800/ |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=UPI |language=en}}Russell, John, Art People, New York Times January 16, 1981, p. 20