Walter Robinson (aka Mike Robinson, born 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is a New York City-based painter, publisher, art curator and art writer.[1] He has been called a Neo-pop painter, as well as a member of the 1980s The Pictures Generation.[2][3]
Robinson was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and raised in Tulsa. He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University in 1968.[4] Subsequently, he graduated from the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1973.[5] He lived in SoHo in the 1970s and on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side in the 1980s and '90s,[6] and currently lives uptown with a studio in Long Island City in Queens.
Robinson began writing about art in the 1970s, when he co-founded with Edit DeAk the art zine Art-Rite[14][15] in New York's SoHo art district.[16]
He subsequently served as news editor of Art in America magazine (1980–96) and founding editor of Artnet Magazine (1996-2012).[17] In 2013-14 he was a columnist for Artspace.com, where his essay on Zombie Formalism appeared.[18] He also served as art editor of the East Village Eye in the early ‘80s.[19]
Robinson was also active in Collaborative Projects (aka Colab) in the early 1980s,[20] acting as president for a short time and participating in The Times Square Show.[21]
In the ‘90s he was a correspondent for GalleryBeat TV, a public-access television show.[22]
^Peter Schjeldahl, "Reality Principle," The New Yorker, Sept. 26, 2016, p. 10.
^Regan Upshaw, Walter Robinson at Semaphore, Art in America, Feb. 1985
^Brooks Adams, Walter Robinson at Metro Pictures New York, Art in America, May 1982, pp. 144-145
^"Charles Bukowski / Walter Robinson," Owen James Gallery
^Alan W. Moore, Art Worker: Doing Time in the New York Art World, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press, 2022, pp. 29, 56, 69, 75, 80, 89, 104-5, 109, 111
^David Frankel, The Rite Stuff: Art-Rite, Artforum International, January 2003
^Andrew Russeth, Art Net: The Life and Times of Walter Robinson, Observer.com, Jan. 24, 2012 [2]
^Walter Robinson, Flipping and the Rise of Zombie Formalism, Artspace Magazine, April 3, 2014 [3]
^Claudia Eve Beauchesne, East Village Eye, Tunica Studio Magazine No. 4 [4]
^Max Schumann, ed., "A Book about Colab (and Related Activities)," Printed Matter, Inc., 2015.
^Alan W. Moore, Art Worker: Doing Time in the New York Art World, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press, 2022, pp. 29, 56, 69, 75, 80, 89, 104-5, 109, 111
Hager, Steve. Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene. St. Matins Press, 1986.
Carlo McCormick, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, Princeton University Press, 2006.
Alan W. Moore and Marc Miller, eds. ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery New York: ABC No Rio with Collaborative Projects, 1985.