An interview with Peter Plagens, the abstract painter who is perhaps best known not as an artist, but as the longtime art critic for Newsweek Magazine. Plagens wrote for Newsweek from 1989 to 2003, and since then has continued to write for Artforum and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. In this interview, Plagens talks about teaching at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1960s, why writing for a magazine is better than teaching, and why, in 2019, anyone should still be making abstract paintings. He spoke on the occasion of an exhibition of his paintings at Texas Gallery in Houston, which opened in April 2019.
“It’s nicer to deal with readers than it is to deal with students. You don’t feel responsible for somebody’s fate.”
Listen to the podcast below, or go to Glasstire’s Soundcloud channel here.
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