Oral history interview with Ross Bleckner
name: label: Interviewee
content: Bleckner, Ross
label: Interviewer
content: Yablonsky, Linda, 1948-
label: Names
content: Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project
topic: label: Topic
content: Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: AIDS (Disease) and the arts
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Bleckner, Ross
label: Interviewer
content: Yablonsky, Linda, 1948-
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Interviewee Ross Bleckner (1949- ) is a painter in New York, New York. Interviewer Linda Yablonsky (1948- ) is a writer in New York, New York.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 2 Items (sound files (6 hrs., 23 min.), digital, wav)
label: Extent
content: 151 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2016 July 6-8
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.bleckn16
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview with Ross Bleckner conducted 2016 July 6 and 8, by Linda Yablonsky, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at Bleckner's studio in New York, New York.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Bleckner speaks of his early childhood on Long Island, New York; psychoanalysis treatment as a child; early sexual experiences; his journaling practice; attending college at NYU; exposure to New York City's gallery scene in the late 1960s; spending the summer of 1970 in San Francisco; enrolling in CalArts' first graduating class; moving back to New York in 1975; his approach to painting; his body of gallery exhibitions; the beginning of the the AIDS epidemic; the New York nightclub scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s; the artists, art collectors, art dealers, and celebrities he socialized with in the 1980s; his career as an art professor; the effect of the AIDS epidemic on his paintings; his work as an AIDS activist; critical responses to his AIDS-related paintings; changes in the art world and market since the 1990s; and his greatest personal influences. Bleckner also recalls Sol Lewitt, Chuck Close, Howard Conant, Irving Sandler, Lizzie Borden, Paula Cooper, Julian Schnabel, Barbara Kruger, Betty Cunningham, David Salle, Eric Fischl, David Diao, Thomas Ammann, Andy Warhol, Alexis Rockman, Bianca Jagger, Gary Indiana, Michael Kimmelman, and others.