Artists Talk On Art Celebrates Its 30th Year.
ATOA, the longest-running aesthetic discussion series in the history of art, has
reached its 30th anniversary presenting artist panels and dialogs. The series was
inspired, in part, by The Club of the 1940s and 50s and was originally conceived by
Lori Antonacci, Bob Wiegand and myself in the summer of 1974. By that fall we were
putting the initial board of directors together and planning the first panels. The opening
panel “What Ever Happened To Public Art” was held on January 10, 1975, with 92
people packed into the Open Mind Gallery on Greene Street. That early board of
directors consisted of the three of us and Bruce Barton, Cynthia Navaretta, Irving
Sandler, and Corinne Robins.
Over the years, ATOA has presented over 8,000 artists, critics and other art world figures such as Judy Pfaff,
Paul Georges, Lowery Sims, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, April Gornik, Sari Dienes, Sidney Geist,
Ana Mendieta, Dennis Oppenheim, Milton Esterow, Larry Rivers, Howardina Pindell, Arthur Danto,
Leon Golub, Alice Neel, Mary Frank, Judy Chicago, Chuck Close, Grace Glueck, Budd Hopkins, David
Salle, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pat Passlof, Marisol, Leonard Horowitz, Selina Trief, David Weinrib,
Will Barnet, Ursula von Rydingsvard, George Rada, Milton Resnick, Elizabeth Murray, Ivan Karp,
Marcia Marcus, Jay Milder, John Hultberg, Louise Bourgeois, Virginia Zabriskie, Robert De Niro, Sr,
Edit DeAk, Philip Pavia, Richard Kostelanitz, Molly Barnes, Clement Meadmore, Dorothy Gillespie,
George McNeil, Carl Andre, Dore Ashton, Janet Fish, Mercedes Matter, John Perreault, Wolf Kahn,
Rob Storr, Audrey Flack, Barbara Kruger, John Kacere, Hilton Kramer, Lynda Benglis, Robert Longo,
Pat Steir, Rudolph Baranik, Burt Hasen, Jack Beal, Nell Blaine, Donald Kuspit, Mary Miss, Ralph
Gibson, Ross Bleckner, Geno Rodriquez, Camille Billops, James Wines, Miriam Shapiro, Kim Levin,
Alfred Leslie, Carolee Schneeman, Ernest Briggs, Sal Romano, Philip Pearlstein, Sylvia Sleigh,
Carter Ratcliff, Nicholas Krushenick, Eric Fischl, Robert Henry, Michael Goldberg, Sherman Drexler,
Jackie Ferarra, Komar & Melamid, Shelly Rice, Joan Semmel, Peter Schjeldahl, Colette, Benny
Andrews, Marcia Tucker, Grace Hartigan, Robert C. Morgan, A. D. Coleman, Nancy Spero, the
Guerrilla Girls, Jules Olitski, Lucy Lippard, Chaim Gross, Alanna Heiss, Lois Dodd, Peter Agostini,
Peter Frank and Pat Mainardi,* at various locations in Soho, Tribeca, Chelsea and most recently at SVA.
Our programs have been as diverse and pluralistic as our list of panelists suggest. Our cumulative live
audience has exceeded 50,000 and the additional home and school audiences via the web, our past cable
shows and video sales (mainly to schools) has driven that audience number much higher.
It’s really exciting, as we enter our 30th Anniversary year to be associated with SVA, one of the premier art
institutions in the country. You can find a new calendar of ATOA events posted on this website
and on the College’s website, http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/,
or by calling ATOA at (212) 779-9250.
The newly expanded programming committee has done a great job of putting together some really excellent
panels and dialogs for winter/spring 2005. Additionally, in part because of the 30th anniversary – which we plan
to celebrate throughout 2005 – many other events are planned including a fundraising auction, a party and a
commemorative panel (a birthday party, complete with cake, to be held on January 28, 2005). We also are
repeating our popular Curator’s Choice artist’s slide competition.
For information or to obtain a prospectus send a SASE to ATOA, 10 Waterside Plaza, # 33D, New
York, NY 10010-2602. The contest closes March 27, 2005.
How has ATOA lasted 30 years and yet remained vibrant, interesting and energetic? Dedication! Once again,
let me thank our board, advisory board,
programming committee, interns and volunteers as we arrive at this
important milestone. But, most of all, I thank you, for your continued patronage and support. How does it feel
to reach this anniversary? We are proud of what we have achieved and a bit stunned that we made it this far.
Doug Sheer
* note: this is only a tiny sampling of the panelist names.
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