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Art in New York in the 1980s

Manhattan was simply a restaurant. A big, glittery place that began an evening with margaritas made from limes freshly squeezed, continued with poached salmon garnished with vegetables, and ended with whole tables of meals being paid by another; or, just as often, people abandoned the table before paying and you were stuck with the tab. It was a time when everyone received either much more or much less than they deserved.

Maybe this doesn't sound like it has anything to do with art, but I assure you that restaurants were the epicenter of everything related to art that occurred in New York City during the period circa 1980-1990. There was a minor American painter whose work was shown at a major gallery and whose brother owned a restaurant that regularly served drinks and dinners after openings. There were a few chic French bistros in the margins of the East Village either owned and operated by artists or simply populated by curators, critics, dealers, artists, their friends - and of course, young people from Uptown who wanted to pretend that their lives were interesting. For the Soho community, perhaps The Odeon, Barocco, and Jerry's formed the main triangle of possibilities for art business lunches and post-opening festivities. For the 57th Street scene, The Russian Tea Room hadn't yet closed its auspicious doors and was a favorite place for publicists to suggest if they were seeking art writers to cover the opening of a new, usually way-out-of-town, museum. Art world publicists, like private dealers, advisors to corporate collections, art consultants, and exclusively secondary market dealers, were produced and sustained by and through the '80s. Although a few of these players and the positions they held survived into the '90s, others have since moved to Los Angeles, where fewer artists, critics, collectors or restaurants exist, but the real estate is nonetheless cheaper.

As part of one's indoctrination into the restaurant culture of the '80s art world, one developed the skill of researching the room, cataloguing the composition of each table, acknowledging the purpose of the gathering, sizing up the importance of who was present, who was absent - and who was paying. For a time, there was an Italian owned art magazine whose writers and staff could lunch for free at an upscale trattoria on Spring Street. This restaurant remains, though the magazine declared bankruptcy shortly after it began, forever owing money to many of us. Most of the art magazines maintained accounts at one or more Soho restaurants.

Sometime during the mid-'80s, two editors of Artforum were reportedly dismissed for overcharging too many meals, although it should be noted that it was also rumored that one of them had also received more than a few legal summons during the same period, from galleries demanding payment on artworks received, and this was also assumed to have occasioned his departure. More than ten years later, this same personage is presumed missing, or, in American legal parlance at large, in connection with actionable misconduct related to events concerning the 1993 Venice Biennale. It would be dishonorable of me, however, to reveal these facts, without also disclosing that I was, on more than one occasion, hosted by this same person at various restaurants, not only in New York City, but in other major cities of the world during the '80s. In fact, he once gave me a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles that enabled me to witness one of his many and celebrated curatorial efforts; though the ticket was written in the name of another person, it was not yet a problem in 1987 to travel under the name of Brian, even if your name was Laura, given that the United States government had not yet implemented mandatory identification for all airline passengers at check-in.

Less you assume that this is all simply vulgar nonsense that has nothing at all in common with the higher aspirations of fine art, it should be noted that sometime during the '80s, the artist Felix Gonzales-Torres told me that Jerry's, a Soho eatery where one could always expect to exchange nods with other players in the contemporary art field, was in fact his studio. Felix, who died in 1996 of the AIDS plague that began to invade New York in the early 80s, has since been immortalized in numerous museum exhibitions and catalogues, though to the best of my knowledge the prerequisite late 19th-century style portrait of the artist in his studio has yet to appear in any of the numerous books on the artist, and if such a document were to be published, it would necessarily be of Felix seated at one of the overlit banquettes that line the inner right wall across from the long wooden bar at Jerry's.

It troubles me that I can no longer recall the first time I was invited by an art dealer as a post-opening dinner guest. This is of course a significant turning point in the career of a New York critic, a monumental rite de passage that should have been elaborated in extensive detail in my private diary! I should be able to recall easily now the color of the tablecloth, what I ordered for a main course, who sat on my right and my left, if any provocative words were exchanged, and if the lighting was nice. Alas! I don't even remember the name of the gallery, the artist in whose honor the invitation arrived, the year this fantastic transformation of myself from one who aspires to one who is chosen occurred. Worse still, it occurs to me only now, that maybe I didn't even attend this life altering event, that perhaps my lack of memory is simply a falsehood, a mental substitute for refusing to face the more horrifying possibility that when this significant opportunity finally arrived, I was otherwise engaged, lost the address, got the flu, jotted down the wrong date, or forgot to show up. In the Manhattan universe, such disregard for the hand of fate could only have brought forth the most serious of consequences, penalties under which I am still suffering, even in ignorance, until this very day.

I remember other Manhattan art dinner parables quite well however. One in particular outshines the rest. Although the sacred rites of restaurant dining in Manhattan are prohibited by law from full disclosure, I will do my best to reveal the situation as fully as possible while still managing to fall short of potential legal censure.

The dinner took place sometime in the mid to late '80s, in one of the autumn months, which remain, as they were during the time of Edith Wharton, the peak of the social season in New York. Although the chandeliered ballrooms that once served as grand party sites for New York's wealthiest families have long since been sold off into condominiums, New York Society continues its tradition of lavish entertaining in the expansive halls of the 19th-Regiment Armory on Park Avenue; among the precious objects found in the marbled galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which are now possible to rent); in the less well-appointed rooms and less polished floors of the smaller museums; occasionally, although less desirably, at the city's better hotels; and in a few of the sanctified enclaves found at the more prestigious of New York's universities. And, especially for the parvenus, at restaurants.

This particular event was in fact in honor of a restaurant.A period piece leftover from the golden years of New York, which for the very rich were the years before 1945 when it was still possible for one of independent means to afford to keep live-in servants, this restaurant had survived the last days of the horse drawn carriage, both Wars, the introduction of McDonald's, the party held for the Black Panthers at conductor Leonard Bernstein's Park Avenue apartment, and the coming and going of the mini-skirt. Like everything that matters in America, this restaurant has made more than a few appearances in Hollywood movies, including one of the fifties classics directed by Douglas Sirk where Lauren Bacall and her leading man are featured having lunch on one of the red checkered table cloths that once defined this establishment's dining interior. On the night to which I refer, however, this restaurant was being celebrated on the occasion of its refurbishment, on its transformation from a male bastion of wood and clubbiness into a place of more refined decor - still American, still serving hamburgers, but with a bit of an echo or perhaps just some borrowing from the French.

Responsible for this historic moment were Mr. and Mrs. X, patrons of the arts, residents of Park Avenue and Southampton, parents of three, and direct beneficiaries of Wall Street magic. At the time of the party in question, they had recently purchased an art magazine but were not yet on the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art. The re-opening of their restaurant, which had also been an '80s purchase, featured three different dinners across three evenings, with guests of approximately two hundred each night. A few of the guests, including myself, had been invited because of our connection to the art magazine. Among the other guests were fellow art patrons, dealers in art and antiques, a few local politicians, the occasional family member, lawyers, gossip columnists from the Manhattan tabloids, members of the architectural firm responsible for the renovation, decorators with Uptown clientele, and notable members of the Wall Street community (including a few who later went to prison on racketeering charges).

No New York event organized in the '80s on this lavish of scale was really considered a success unless at least one very famous person attended; that is, a celebrity of national or international recognition. Downtown events of the time were satisfied with Downtown celebrities such as the appearance of music and film personalities like David Byrne or Richard Gere (both of whom I remember being present at at least two different art world benefits from the period: in fact, I took bets from my respective tables on both, the former for obtaining a dance and the latter for obtaining a kiss - I lost on the dance.)

But Uptown events required bigger stars in attendance. If it was a Hollywood personage it had to be someone on the scale of Elizabeth Taylor and there was practically no one from the music industry considered big enough to matter, excepting perhaps Barbara Streisand. On this particular night the reigning celebrity at dinner was the former CEO of the Chrysler Corporation, Lee Iacocca. He was addressed glowingly in the opening remarks made by Mr. and Mrs. X and was seated, along with our hosts, at the central table in the sea of circular tables that occupied the restaurant's elegant and expansive main room.

Although I was seated, along with other unknown personages, at a far table in a distant corner of the restaurant, in the generally vague area that exists in all of New York's finer restaurants and which Truman Capote successfully defined in the '80s as Siberia, I could still witness the composition of the central, the truly important, table. There, seated alongside Lee Iacocca, Mr. and Mrs. X, and other no doubt especially significant persons was one of the Downtown art dealers. Indeed, if you didn't know whose party it was, you might well have thought it was hers, as her manner owed everything to Cleopatra. She held her body a bit removed from the table and her general attitude was skeptical, as if she wasn't fully persuaded by this dinner any more than Marc Antony's reasons for returning to Rome had convinced her. At my table, which included some other Downtown art types, we were understandably impressed by her central placement, as it seemed to indicate a significant gain for contemporary art. To understand this, you have to know that Mr. and Mrs. X, like most Uptown art collectors, are patrons of Modern - not contemporary - Art. For a Downtown dealer in contemporary art to be seated at high table at an Uptown event indicated to us that the entire field of contemporary art was being embraced and supported with newfound vigor and courage not previously found in the entire history of the ruling classes. It appeared at that moment as if living artists would no longer have to wait until death to find appreciation - and more importantly, money - from the rich and the powerful! If this art dealer, who was at that precise moment the most successful dealer in contemporary art in all of New York, was being courted by the likes of Mr. and Mrs. X, that could only mean that all of Park Avenue was abuzz with delight at the prospect of investing in new art.

One member of my circle confirmed that the art dealer in question had never advertised in the art magazine owned by Mr. and Mrs. X, a fact that squashed a cynic at our table who claimed that the art dealer's good seat had merely been purchased by an annual advertising contract. We were aware, of course, that most of the money that passed through the hands of dealers in contemporary art in New York at the time was coming from Wall Street; in fact, it was a shared understanding among the art cognoscenti that there were few real collectors in contemporary art in New York during the '80s, but many buyers and sellers. While one of the most successful artists of the '80s had spent his salad days as a stockbroker, the regal dealer so socially elevated before us was known to have modeled her art distribution practice, likewise, on Wall Street-derived concepts. Like brokerage houses on the Street (a pet name for Wall Street favored by its habitues), Soho's Cleopatra paid her employees a minimum annual salary that ballooned at the end of the calendar year, thereby more than doubling their earnings for the entire year in one simple check that arrived just before Christmas. Unlike the notable New York dealers who had begun operation in the '60s or '70s, who simply followed marketing procedures borrowed from Paris before the War, this Star Dealer of the '80s - who started her career at Leo Castelli's feet, assuring a fine provenance for herself - developed entirely new strategies for the selling of art. She forced collectors to purchase a bad canvas by a bad artist if they wanted to have a chance at anything good; she utilized the movements of the auction market to buffer and expand the prices she set for artists in her stable; she refused to allow collectors to carry art debts beyond a 90- and sometimes only a 30-day limit and was capable of making collection calls to hospitals to insure prompt payments from a clientele long accustomed to taking a year or more to pay for an expensive piece. She had made herself and her artists quite rich. And if ever there was anyone who could marry the aims of Art with those of High Finance it was she, as she had already in effect done so when we witnessed the fine reward that Providence had offered her by granting her such an esteemed place at the center table alongside Mr. and Mrs. X. At the close of the main course and before the arrival of dessert, I left my place in Siberia to go to what is referred to in a restaurant of this style as the Powder Room.

There, before a long horizontal mirror, situated among other women adjusting their evening gowns and facial cosmetics, was Mrs. X. She was engaged in conversation with another women, who wore one of the faux-Fortuny pleated gowns popular that season which had been knocked off and successfully popularized by Mary McFadden. As I entered the room they were, much to my chagrin, talking of Her Highness the Dealer in Contemporary Art herself.

"But there was nothing I could do," was saying Mrs. X.
"But she knows that you know, of course," said McFadden's Fortuny gown.
Mrs. X gave a shrug of her small bare shoulders and smiled.
"But of course she is certain you know!," insisted faux Fortuny, with eyebrows raised.

My curiosity was of course peaked. Given that I had made the acquaintance of Mrs. X more than one year before - I was, in fact, one of her employees - I couldn't help but ask:

"Knows what?"

The short queue of women aligned along the mirror glanced in unison toward Mrs. X., expectant as to what words she would offer in response. After a moment of dignified silence, she answered me quite simply with:

"Y. and Z. [she referred to both Cleopatra and her husband, whom I haven't yet mentioned but who was indeed present] changed their place cards to be seated at our table. "

Truly aghast and horrified, I asked: "You mean they entered into the Dining Room during cocktails and moved the cards?"

The small audience gathered before the mirror smiled together in friendly condescension before Mrs. X., with genuine sympathy in regard to my confusion and in deference to my youth, rescued me with: "More likely, someone else performed the task for them."

Such an accusation of such a serious violation of dining protocol alarmed me far more than all of the rumors of ruthless business behavior that circulated around the Art Dealer. Indeed, my impulse, which in hindsight seems the height of naivete and youthful ignorance, was to demand proof, as if this Powder Room charge against Downtown's Cleopatra were on the equivalent with murder or a similarly heinous crime, the accusations of which are nearly as serious as the awful action itself, and thus must be immediately corroborated as soon as they are spoken.

"Are you certain?" I asked, as it immediately occurred to me that it was indeed quite possible that Cleopatra had simply journeyed, like the rest of us, to the small white card bearing her name and taken the rightful, or what she presumed to be rightful, chair behind same. In response to my query, Mrs. X. assured me that she had personally inspected each table, matching each name card against the carefully pre-arranged seating plan, less than five minutes before dinner was announced.

"But how awful for her!" I exclaimed. "Of course she knows you must know! How can she take any pleasure in being seated beside you?" Mrs. X. looked at me sagely, trying hard to suppress that special sense of humor that overtakes older people when they witness, face to face, gullible and well-meaning youth.

"But it's not for me that she does it," she explained carefully. "it's for the rest of the room."

Finally, then, I understood everything. It was a question, quite simply, of being seen. At the right place, the right time.

To this day I don't know the cost of such a maneuver, or even how exactly such an arrangement is made. Does one travel with a place seating changer, a person who sits up front with the chauffeur during dinner and awaits the next event of the evening, where a similar service may be required? Or can a waiter be persuaded to perform such a task? If so, is the price $100 or $1,000 - I haven't the slightest idea.

Given how enlightening and necessary were Mrs. X's comments, I ventured one final Powder Room question: "But whom did they move?" (For obviously, a table of ten is always and only a table of ten; an addition of two necessarily means a subtraction of the same.)

She shook her head no by way of response, thus protecting two of the innocent victims of Art in New York in the '80s



Laura Cottingham
New York, 1998