Installation view, Julian Schnabel: Paintings from 1978-1987, Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York, NY, 2024. Artworks © Julian Schnabel Studio; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery. Photo: Argenis Apolinario.
In the 1980s, when I started publishing criticism, Julian Schnabel’s art was much denounced. Leftists complained that his paintings were not politically critical while aesthetic conservatives said that they were historically retrograde. And several critics who should have known better cruelly made fun of him, as if his style of art-making revealed everything that was wrong with American culture. I confess that I accepted this viewpoint, guided less by what I saw (as a critic should be guided), than by what I had read about him. But it’s time to look again at Schnabel’s early works. Aesthetic response should be governed by concrete experience, not abstract theorizing. Now I have the opportunity to correct my previous judgment.