So how did the New York Times review Dan Flavin’s seminal 1964 show at Green Gallery? Actually, it didn’t. Stuart Preston just gave it a snarky, inaccurate blurb in the weekend gallery listings on Nov. 28. I can’t imagine it drove much traffic:
Why don’t you make constructions out of variously colored long and short neon tubing and then turn on the light switch? That’s what’s done here.
Warhol’s first show at Castelli’s Upper East Side gallery fared a little better. [He’d already showed sculpture–Brillo boxes, et al–at Stable Gallery earlier that spring and filmed Sleep and Empire that summer. Busy busy.]:
New paintings, partly done with the silk screen, feature bright repeat patterns of semiabstract flowers. They are bright [you said that. -ed.], pretty, well-designed and would make smashing wallpapers.
I’m sure Andy would’ve taken that as a compliment.