1 00:00:07,760 --> 00:00:22,040 Speaker 1: Pushkin. This show contains adult language and occasional descriptions of violence. 2 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:25,639 Speaker 1: Please keep that in mind when choosing when and where 3 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:32,280 Speaker 1: to listen. Previously on Death of an Artist, she's making 4 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:37,040 Speaker 1: photocopies and she wanted to use that for her divorce 5 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:40,280 Speaker 1: on grounds of infidelity. I find that my roots are Cuban. 6 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:44,120 Speaker 1: The branches might be American, but the trunk of the 7 00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:47,519 Speaker 1: tree is Cuban or the roots. You know, she was 8 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:50,200 Speaker 1: not a santea. She was not dressed in white. There 9 00:00:50,280 --> 00:00:53,760 Speaker 1: is a very big difference between a practitioner of santea 10 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:58,840 Speaker 1: and somebody who studies or uses it as a way 11 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:10,360 Speaker 1: of working with culture. I want to take you back 12 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:14,240 Speaker 1: to nineteen eighties Manhattan. In those days, you could actually 13 00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:17,399 Speaker 1: smoke in the hallways of the courtroom, and many a 14 00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:21,560 Speaker 1: jury weight took place in the hallways with people smoking 15 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:26,440 Speaker 1: cigarettes and playing cards and things like that. It was gritty. 16 00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:31,440 Speaker 1: That's Ron Koubi, a long time New York City defense lawyer. 17 00:01:31,959 --> 00:01:34,160 Speaker 1: He's going to be our tour guide through the legal 18 00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:41,000 Speaker 1: dynamics of Carl's trial. The city had suffered a recession. 19 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:44,720 Speaker 1: Crime was rampim. There had been a spate of high 20 00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 1: profile horrors. I remember taking the subway to school and 21 00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:51,559 Speaker 1: reading the ominous headlines in the post or the daily news. 22 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,000 Speaker 1: Fear was in the air, and much of it played 23 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: on white people's deep seated racism that equated crime with 24 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:05,920 Speaker 1: people of color. The judges were almost exclusively white, the 25 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:12,560 Speaker 1: defendants were almost exclusively people of color. And the almost 26 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:17,760 Speaker 1: there is important because, oh, from nineteen eighty five through 27 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:22,040 Speaker 1: eighty eight eighty nine, there was a plethora of defendants 28 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:26,560 Speaker 1: in cases that I'll just call white boys behaving badly. 29 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:30,880 Speaker 1: There was the Robert Chambers case. That's the so called 30 00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:35,920 Speaker 1: preppy murder case. Chambers claimed his friend Jennifer Levin accidentally 31 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,920 Speaker 1: died during rough sex. This trial was actually happening just 32 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:42,959 Speaker 1: down the hall from Carl Andre's trial and was getting 33 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,720 Speaker 1: all the media attention. Paul Castellano, who was rubbed out 34 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:52,160 Speaker 1: at the steakhouse in plain View on the street again 35 00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:55,240 Speaker 1: being a crime family mafio so killed in a hit 36 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:59,400 Speaker 1: ordered by John Gotti. There was Bernard gets, the white 37 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:02,840 Speaker 1: man who shot four young African American teenagers on the 38 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:07,600 Speaker 1: subway in a highly dubious act of vigilante justice, and 39 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:11,079 Speaker 1: of course less well known but still significant in the 40 00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:15,840 Speaker 1: art world, there was Carl Andre This was the backdrop 41 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:20,120 Speaker 1: of Carl's trial, a swirl of high profile cases of 42 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:24,120 Speaker 1: white men accused of murder. The new Assistant DA on 43 00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:28,040 Speaker 1: the case was Elizabeth Letterer, and by nineteen eighty eight 44 00:03:28,440 --> 00:03:31,840 Speaker 1: she was ready to go to trial. Several of Anna's 45 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:34,960 Speaker 1: friends rallied and joined Anna's family in the courthouse to 46 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,920 Speaker 1: witness the proceedings. One of the people who attended almost 47 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:43,280 Speaker 1: every day was b Ruby Rich. She remembers a stark scene. 48 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:46,560 Speaker 1: There's an aisle down the middle, and one side is 49 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:52,040 Speaker 1: reserved for the defendants friends and family, and the other 50 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:55,920 Speaker 1: sides reserved for the victim's friends and family. It's exactly 51 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,160 Speaker 1: a bad wedding where one side of the family disapproves 52 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:01,520 Speaker 1: of the marriage, as I think they did in fact 53 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:05,560 Speaker 1: disapprove of the marriage. On his side was packed with 54 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:10,240 Speaker 1: friends and family, while Carl's side remained empty. He had 55 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:13,520 Speaker 1: apparently asked his friends and supporters not to come to 56 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:18,040 Speaker 1: the courthouse. All of Carl's friends were telling people in 57 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: the art world not to go. Carl doesn't want you there, 58 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:28,520 Speaker 1: and under the guise of sensitivity, you know you don't 59 00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:30,839 Speaker 1: want to see Carl like this was kind of the 60 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:34,560 Speaker 1: implication of it. Under that guise, nobody knew what was 61 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:39,159 Speaker 1: going on. They prevented people from actually hearing the testimony, 62 00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:42,359 Speaker 1: from actually hearing the evidence, from actually finding out what 63 00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:46,080 Speaker 1: had gone on. This would come to feel symbolic of 64 00:04:46,080 --> 00:04:49,640 Speaker 1: the whole affair. For honest people, it was a profoundly 65 00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:54,280 Speaker 1: public matter that demanded visibility, and for Carl's people, it 66 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 1: was a situation to be kept private. You can publicize 67 00:04:57,960 --> 00:04:59,800 Speaker 1: his works, but you can't talk about his private life 68 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:04,720 Speaker 1: with That's Carl's defense lawyer Jack Hoffinger, Carl Andre is 69 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:07,160 Speaker 1: an extremely private person. I mean he doesn't want a 70 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:11,640 Speaker 1: photograph taken. Carl Andre has never talked publicly, and I 71 00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:16,760 Speaker 1: doubt that he's talked really privately about this case to anybody. 72 00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:21,960 Speaker 1: This image of Karl alone in the courtroom, no friends, 73 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:26,479 Speaker 1: no family, is both tragic and chilling. We can see 74 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:29,760 Speaker 1: a man bereft, a man on the brink of losing everything, 75 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:33,839 Speaker 1: or we can see a man set apart from others 76 00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:37,440 Speaker 1: because of his intellect, his power to transform the history 77 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:42,920 Speaker 1: of art, his genius. I'm your host. Helen Wallsworth from 78 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:47,919 Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries, Something Else and Sony Music entertainment. This is 79 00:05:48,520 --> 00:06:02,559 Speaker 1: Death of an Artist, Episode four. The Genius Problem. Here's 80 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:05,440 Speaker 1: the thing, and this is probably going to feel familiar. 81 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:09,520 Speaker 1: When a super talented man, someone who's been called a genius, 82 00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:15,039 Speaker 1: gets accused of harming someone they're fans meaning us, Well, 83 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:17,560 Speaker 1: it turns out we don't really want to believe it, 84 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 Speaker 1: at least not at first and not for a long time. 85 00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:27,920 Speaker 1: Roman Polanski, Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen. So when 86 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:31,080 Speaker 1: Carl was accused of honest murder, there was a sense 87 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:35,640 Speaker 1: of shock on two levels. City Confidential, a cheesy true 88 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:40,200 Speaker 1: crime TV show, described the art world's reaction. There was 89 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:46,640 Speaker 1: shock on the Sheik Streets of Solo to the shock 90 00:06:46,839 --> 00:06:50,440 Speaker 1: was that Carl had murdered on it and you others. 91 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:54,159 Speaker 1: It was a shock that anyone could possibly accused the 92 00:06:54,279 --> 00:07:02,159 Speaker 1: Great Carl Andre of something so heinous. But when Carl 93 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:05,960 Speaker 1: finally stood trial, his defense team recognized that the folks 94 00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: in the art world who thought he was a genius 95 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:11,080 Speaker 1: were not going to be the ones deciding his fate. 96 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:15,000 Speaker 1: A typical jury in Manhattan in the late nineteen eighties 97 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:19,200 Speaker 1: would have largely been civil servants and retired veterans. They 98 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:22,280 Speaker 1: probably weren't going to be impressed by an avant garde 99 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,480 Speaker 1: art star. This is a guy who throws pieces of 100 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:30,640 Speaker 1: metal on a floor, throws some bricks on top. You know, 101 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:36,640 Speaker 1: he's sort of the classic definition of art about which 102 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:39,920 Speaker 1: people say, I don't know much about art, but I 103 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:46,400 Speaker 1: know shit when I see it. Okay, Carl wasn't throwing 104 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:49,560 Speaker 1: pieces of metal or bricks on the floor. But it's 105 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:53,000 Speaker 1: true that Carl made sculptures that challenge the very idea 106 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:56,800 Speaker 1: of art, so I can forgive the folks who couldn't 107 00:07:56,840 --> 00:08:00,320 Speaker 1: see it as art. And it's also true that Carl 108 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:03,960 Speaker 1: came to trial wearing his usual overalls and carrying a 109 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:07,840 Speaker 1: tote bag filled with newspapers and books. He arrived early 110 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:12,360 Speaker 1: every day, read the paper, and remained silent. But even 111 00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:16,040 Speaker 1: though he was wearing working class overalls, he lived in 112 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:20,320 Speaker 1: a luxury high rise apartment, traveled to Europe for art exhibitions, 113 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:24,080 Speaker 1: and sold his work for handsome prices. All of this 114 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:28,280 Speaker 1: contradiction probably wasn't going to endear him to a jury. 115 00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:37,360 Speaker 1: Carl Andre is a remarkably and was a remarkably unsympathetic character. 116 00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:42,880 Speaker 1: First of all, there's his look. He's a big hulking guy. 117 00:08:43,880 --> 00:08:53,080 Speaker 1: He's affecting a working class attitude, but he's not. The 118 00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:57,080 Speaker 1: question the lawyers and Carl were faced with was how 119 00:08:57,120 --> 00:08:59,320 Speaker 1: in the world do you explain his art and his 120 00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:02,400 Speaker 1: lifestyle to the everyday folks who make up the jury 121 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:07,280 Speaker 1: pool in Manhattan. But the judge, Alvin Schlessinger, was not 122 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:14,240 Speaker 1: an everyday person. Schlessinger fancied himself as a more sophisticated person, 123 00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:19,480 Speaker 1: somebody who appreciated arts and culture and all of those 124 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:22,360 Speaker 1: kinds of things, you know, theater and opera and art, 125 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:27,800 Speaker 1: and so he would naturally be a more sympathetic audience 126 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:31,640 Speaker 1: to Andre and his work than your average jury of 127 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:37,760 Speaker 1: twelve plus alternates. Journalist Robert Katz was there when Carl's 128 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:42,160 Speaker 1: defense team hit upon their fundamental strategy. He described the 129 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:46,840 Speaker 1: moment in a radio interview after the trial. Jack Hoffinger 130 00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:50,480 Speaker 1: stood up and said, my client wishes to waive a jury. 131 00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:53,920 Speaker 1: And everybody looked around, and nobody really understood what he meant, 132 00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:57,079 Speaker 1: because no one could remember the last time anybody had 133 00:09:57,080 --> 00:09:59,199 Speaker 1: ever waived a jury and murder trial. It's a very 134 00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:03,840 Speaker 1: very rare event. That was truly an amazing surprise in 135 00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:07,679 Speaker 1: a decision that would have lasting implications. He opted for 136 00:10:07,720 --> 00:10:11,680 Speaker 1: a bench trial, which means the judge and only the judge, 137 00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:15,319 Speaker 1: decides the verdict. On the one hand, it makes sense 138 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:18,319 Speaker 1: to me that Karl foregoes a jury trial. I can 139 00:10:18,400 --> 00:10:21,640 Speaker 1: totally see how he would have seemed very weird to people. 140 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:24,839 Speaker 1: And it also makes sense to me that he didn't 141 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:28,720 Speaker 1: choose a jury trial, because, let's face it, a genius 142 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:31,640 Speaker 1: is going to have a hard time finding a jury 143 00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:36,280 Speaker 1: of their peers. Honest friends viewed the decision to waive 144 00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:41,120 Speaker 1: a jury as cynical. The art world's very special, very special. 145 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:43,400 Speaker 1: This is when people used to say, don't go above 146 00:10:43,440 --> 00:10:47,400 Speaker 1: fourteenth Street because all the Vulgarians are there. They don't 147 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:51,720 Speaker 1: understand truth, they don't understand beauty, they don't understand meaning 148 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:56,440 Speaker 1: nobody else could understand the full genius of a figure 149 00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:00,360 Speaker 1: like Carl andre Or. I think, frankly, nobody us could 150 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:21,920 Speaker 1: understand that Anna's life didn't matter. For some people, Carl's 151 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:24,719 Speaker 1: work was too important to be tethered to the actions 152 00:11:24,840 --> 00:11:28,880 Speaker 1: of a flawed man. And for other people, whatever happened 153 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:32,720 Speaker 1: that night was private. And because whatever happened that night 154 00:11:32,840 --> 00:11:35,839 Speaker 1: was private, it had no place in discussions of his work. 155 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,600 Speaker 1: This kind of thinking is in the very dna of 156 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:44,600 Speaker 1: how art history is taught. So imagine a pact room 157 00:11:44,640 --> 00:11:49,160 Speaker 1: in a library. That's the art historian Julia Brian Wilson. 158 00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:52,960 Speaker 1: She's taking us back to the late nineteen nineties when 159 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:55,760 Speaker 1: she was a young grad student at UC Berkeley, the 160 00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:59,880 Speaker 1: heart of leftist intellectual life and renowned for its stars 161 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:03,839 Speaker 1: studded art history department. A visiting scholar was in town 162 00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:06,640 Speaker 1: to give a lecture on Carl Andre, and the room 163 00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:09,920 Speaker 1: was packed. One of the folks in the room was Julia, 164 00:12:10,280 --> 00:12:13,480 Speaker 1: a punk rock kid from Houston, a far cry from 165 00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:17,240 Speaker 1: the girls with pearls back east who typically populated art 166 00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:20,720 Speaker 1: history departments. I think I might have still been wearing 167 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:24,400 Speaker 1: like this lab coat that I sometimes wore as a 168 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,719 Speaker 1: dress that I had stolen because I was quite a 169 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:30,880 Speaker 1: little thief in my riot girl days, you know, not 170 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:36,280 Speaker 1: the usual uniform of the art history graduate student. The 171 00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:40,160 Speaker 1: speaker talked in formal terms about Carl Andre, using the 172 00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:46,720 Speaker 1: buzzword of the nineties, horizontality. That's horizontality as opposed to verticality. 173 00:12:47,360 --> 00:12:51,880 Speaker 1: Instead of thinking about uplifting monuments or upward progress, folks 174 00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:55,160 Speaker 1: were interested in the horizontal as a metaphor for non 175 00:12:55,280 --> 00:13:00,880 Speaker 1: hierarchical thinking, think crabgrass versus a tree, sib and cousins 176 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:05,640 Speaker 1: versus parent and child. But Julia was thinking about another 177 00:13:05,760 --> 00:13:10,000 Speaker 1: version of horizontality, mouth agape at the fact that forty 178 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:13,439 Speaker 1: five to fifty minutes had gone by talking about this, 179 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:16,200 Speaker 1: that the other, about Carl Andre and again that this 180 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:19,360 Speaker 1: key term of horizontality, where in my mind, I'm thinking 181 00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:24,800 Speaker 1: Anna Mendietta, you know, died in the most brutal way. 182 00:13:24,840 --> 00:13:26,880 Speaker 1: And the fact that there is no mention of this, 183 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:31,840 Speaker 1: I just can't believe it to intone horizontality with all 184 00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:35,400 Speaker 1: of its implications of the ground and of gravity, and 185 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:38,880 Speaker 1: to leave out how Anna died. That felt like not 186 00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:42,559 Speaker 1: just an art history problem, but a history history problem. 187 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,640 Speaker 1: Why was the story so incomplete? And I was just 188 00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:50,640 Speaker 1: boiling with rage in my seat in the lecture room. 189 00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:53,760 Speaker 1: People were asking questions that had to do with the 190 00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:56,320 Speaker 1: formal terms that the speaker was laying out, and no 191 00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:58,559 Speaker 1: one was engaging with what to me seemed like the 192 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:01,920 Speaker 1: bigger moral aches of like why are you giving airtime 193 00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: to this artist? So heart pounding, the young grad student 194 00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:10,640 Speaker 1: stood up and asked her question, what about Anna Mendieta. 195 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:14,840 Speaker 1: Where does she fit into this discussion? She just dismissed it. 196 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:17,679 Speaker 1: Me just feeling like I cannot believe what this discipline 197 00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:21,360 Speaker 1: permits and what it erases, and just my baptism, I 198 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:24,200 Speaker 1: would say, by fire into art history, which was really like, 199 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:27,600 Speaker 1: you are here to learn this cannon, and this cannon 200 00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:32,880 Speaker 1: is pretty fixed. I was just constantly at sea, always 201 00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:35,920 Speaker 1: just hating the discipline in a way while also trying 202 00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:38,120 Speaker 1: to ingratiate myself to it. I mean, I still feel 203 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:42,480 Speaker 1: that way. I still very much feel that way. Julia 204 00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:45,320 Speaker 1: had just walked into one of art history's brick walls, 205 00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:49,000 Speaker 1: the wall that separates the artist and their life from 206 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:56,000 Speaker 1: the artwork they make. I want to go back to 207 00:14:56,040 --> 00:14:58,920 Speaker 1: Peter Sheldall, the fabulous art critic for The New Yorker, 208 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:04,200 Speaker 1: the art who loved Carl Andre's work but disliked his personality. 209 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:10,280 Speaker 1: See if all the minimalists were assholes, and you're walking 210 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:13,720 Speaker 1: through the gauntlet to get to the strawberry shortcake at 211 00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:18,480 Speaker 1: the back of Max's, you had made some kind of 212 00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:24,840 Speaker 1: peace or understanding that you could like artwork made by 213 00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:29,680 Speaker 1: people who you didn't like personally. It sounds like Oh yeah, 214 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:34,240 Speaker 1: I mean that just seemed to me a given a start. 215 00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:37,600 Speaker 1: We don't give a car of Aggio grief for being 216 00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:41,640 Speaker 1: a murderer, you know, which he absolutely was. The controversy 217 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:45,080 Speaker 1: about Ezra Pound after a Second World War, it was 218 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:48,440 Speaker 1: a kind of a watershed for me that, you know, 219 00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:53,080 Speaker 1: he had been a traitor and a Semitic propagandist agi 220 00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:56,200 Speaker 1: American during the war and then after where he was 221 00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:01,200 Speaker 1: given a hugely christ ticket bowling in a war, and 222 00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:05,160 Speaker 1: then he he copied an insanity plea and got, you know, 223 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:08,000 Speaker 1: put in a metal hospital for a while. And there 224 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,680 Speaker 1: was a big debate about it, and I said, no, 225 00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:14,440 Speaker 1: you know, gave him the bowling an award and put 226 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:18,360 Speaker 1: him the fucking jail. So it's not that Peter Sheldall 227 00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:20,600 Speaker 1: or the professor who gave the talk at you see, 228 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:24,800 Speaker 1: Berkeley necessarily thought Carl was innocent. It's that they thought 229 00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:27,520 Speaker 1: it didn't matter when you were looking at his work. 230 00:16:28,640 --> 00:16:31,200 Speaker 1: I never met her, but you know I knew of her, 231 00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:33,480 Speaker 1: and she was not going to throw herself out a window. 232 00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:36,560 Speaker 1: And you know he has scrat from our fantics face 233 00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:40,720 Speaker 1: they were fighting. Did its squalidness ever make you not 234 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:45,440 Speaker 1: want to go and see his show. No no, I 235 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:50,720 Speaker 1: kept going for you to shows, so shell Doll, like 236 00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:53,680 Speaker 1: so many in the art world, like me, for instance, 237 00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:57,840 Speaker 1: kept going to his shows because whatever Carl Andre did 238 00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:01,360 Speaker 1: or did not do in his personal life, his work 239 00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:06,359 Speaker 1: was and would remain fill in the blank canonical great 240 00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:13,159 Speaker 1: genius historical. The art world doesn't have the statistics that 241 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:15,879 Speaker 1: govern the world of sports, but it does have its 242 00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:20,000 Speaker 1: own version of being a goat, and that's genius, and 243 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:24,080 Speaker 1: it is the art world's highest praise. The word typically 244 00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:26,600 Speaker 1: refers to someone who did something no one had ever 245 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:30,960 Speaker 1: done before. So Picasso is a genius because he invented cubism. 246 00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:34,159 Speaker 1: Warhole is a genius because he bridged the gap between 247 00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:38,160 Speaker 1: art and popular culture. Carl Andrea is a genius because 248 00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:41,359 Speaker 1: he solved the problem of sculpture's relationship to the floor. 249 00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:46,080 Speaker 1: By the time of Anna's death, though, feminists were starting 250 00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:50,360 Speaker 1: to scrutinize the whole idea of artistic genius, because while 251 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:53,359 Speaker 1: genius seems like a good thing, it was hard to 252 00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:56,320 Speaker 1: overlook the fact that what the term seemed to describe 253 00:17:56,640 --> 00:18:04,399 Speaker 1: was male genius, which really meant white male genie. Some 254 00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:07,560 Speaker 1: of the loudest and funniest feminist voices in the art 255 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:10,960 Speaker 1: world are an anonymous group of women called the Gorilla Girls. 256 00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:16,879 Speaker 1: That's gorilla spelled like rebel fighter, not the primate. The 257 00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:19,800 Speaker 1: Gorilla Girls are all anonymous and use the names of 258 00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:23,760 Speaker 1: famous dead women artists. We talked to the Gorilla Girl 259 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:27,119 Speaker 1: free to CALLO. We decided from the very beginning that 260 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:31,080 Speaker 1: we had to be anonymous because we really didn't want 261 00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:35,000 Speaker 1: to bite the hand that we hoped would feed us. 262 00:18:35,359 --> 00:18:39,120 Speaker 1: It would be very damaging to one's career to complain 263 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:41,800 Speaker 1: in public like that because the art world is, you know, 264 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:47,400 Speaker 1: is such a kind of self congratulatory place at that time. 265 00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:50,840 Speaker 1: They didn't want to hear anything negative. The way they 266 00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:54,040 Speaker 1: protect their identity out in public is by wearing gorilla 267 00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:58,680 Speaker 1: masks this time spelled like the primate. The gorilla girls 268 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,119 Speaker 1: we spoke to would not tell us their real names 269 00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:04,399 Speaker 1: or turn on their cameras during the interviews, and the 270 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:08,000 Speaker 1: secrecy works to this day. I still don't know who 271 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:12,080 Speaker 1: is and is not a gorilla girl. We wanted to 272 00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:19,000 Speaker 1: confound stereotypes. Gorillas are not the vicious, violent animal or 273 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:24,280 Speaker 1: culture casts on them. They're vegetarian, peaceful animals that live 274 00:19:24,359 --> 00:19:28,720 Speaker 1: in large groups of females and the hilarious masks. In 275 00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:32,000 Speaker 1: a way, it's become our hallmark, and to be honest, 276 00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:34,800 Speaker 1: I think it allows us to say things that we 277 00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:39,040 Speaker 1: might not be able to say through our own identities. 278 00:19:39,359 --> 00:19:44,320 Speaker 1: And the visuals of it is absolutely crazy picture. It 279 00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:47,760 Speaker 1: a bunch of women in miniskirts and gorilla masks using 280 00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:50,760 Speaker 1: humor to poke fun at the absurdities of the white, 281 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:55,280 Speaker 1: male dominated art world. Their primary form of attack were 282 00:19:55,400 --> 00:20:00,600 Speaker 1: posters that combine jokes with found images. Basically, they memes, 283 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,119 Speaker 1: and instead of posting them on Instagram, they put them 284 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,240 Speaker 1: up all around New York City. In nineteen eighty five, 285 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,200 Speaker 1: we put up a poster saying, you know, these galleries 286 00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:14,400 Speaker 1: show fewer than ten percent women artists, are none at all? 287 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,200 Speaker 1: Was it really just a mistake or some kind of 288 00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,960 Speaker 1: terrible oversight that there were almost no women geniuses in 289 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,880 Speaker 1: art history books and so few women represented in galleries 290 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:29,879 Speaker 1: and museums. Part of the genius myth is that the 291 00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:33,480 Speaker 1: genius is a solitary figure. He is a lone wolf. 292 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:36,879 Speaker 1: He is not hemmed in by conventional thinking or the 293 00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:40,480 Speaker 1: rules and rags of everyday life. A genius does not 294 00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:43,679 Speaker 1: do the dishes, or shop for dinner, or raise children. 295 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:47,040 Speaker 1: It's a hard category for women to be a part of. 296 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,399 Speaker 1: One of the Guerrilla girls most famous posters is called 297 00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:55,520 Speaker 1: The Advantages of being a Woman Artist. It has a 298 00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:59,360 Speaker 1: list of perks that include working without the pressure of success, 299 00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:02,760 Speaker 1: knowing that your career might pick up after your eighty 300 00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:06,240 Speaker 1: and not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called 301 00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:10,320 Speaker 1: a genius. The other thing about genius is it always 302 00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:15,720 Speaker 1: trump's bad behavior. There was this crazy thing called artistic license, 303 00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:20,200 Speaker 1: which meant that artists get excused because whatever it is 304 00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:22,560 Speaker 1: that they produce is so much more important than whatever 305 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:28,280 Speaker 1: damage they could do to people in their lives. Even 306 00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:30,920 Speaker 1: though Anna died in nineteen eighty five, it would be 307 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:33,919 Speaker 1: a decade before the Guerrilla Girls would tackle the problem 308 00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:38,760 Speaker 1: of Carl Andrea and Anna Mendieta head on. They weren't alone. 309 00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:42,560 Speaker 1: Critics like Peter Sheldall and curators like me continued to 310 00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:48,439 Speaker 1: separate bad male behavior from good male art. Even Julia 311 00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:51,760 Speaker 1: Brian Wilson, who was so angry at that Berkeley lecture 312 00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:55,600 Speaker 1: about Carl Andre, found herself a few years later writing 313 00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:58,680 Speaker 1: a chapter of her dissertation about Carl's role in the 314 00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:03,040 Speaker 1: Artworkers Coalition and only mentioning an A. Mendietta's death in 315 00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:06,520 Speaker 1: a footnote. I had to convince myself and be convinced 316 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,760 Speaker 1: to grapple with his work in the book, because I 317 00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:12,760 Speaker 1: felt for myself, as a young feminist, that there was 318 00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:17,400 Speaker 1: something troubling to me about talking about his work divorced 319 00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:21,600 Speaker 1: from the fact of the marriage and Mendietta's death. And 320 00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:23,359 Speaker 1: I have a footnote. I mean, and you know, I 321 00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:30,119 Speaker 1: do acknowledge it that it was a fact. Julia had 322 00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:32,680 Speaker 1: to write to Carl to get his permission to access 323 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:37,440 Speaker 1: some research materials, and that correspondence resulted in an invitation 324 00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:40,960 Speaker 1: to his apartment. When she recounted the story, it was 325 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,359 Speaker 1: clear how uncomfortable it made her. I went to his 326 00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:49,639 Speaker 1: apartment and met him. I was really shocked when he 327 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:51,560 Speaker 1: sent me his address and I saw that it was 328 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:54,600 Speaker 1: the same building where he had lived with on A Mendietta. 329 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,639 Speaker 1: And to me, I thought, gosh, you know, sort of, 330 00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,440 Speaker 1: no matter what happened with that death, I would not 331 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 1: want to stay in the same place where my partner 332 00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:10,200 Speaker 1: had died. She was in a deeply ambivalent place, somewhere 333 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:14,359 Speaker 1: between grateful and spooked. If you're working on a living artist, 334 00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:16,879 Speaker 1: there is some feeling like it is part of the 335 00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,760 Speaker 1: research process that you make contact with them. I felt 336 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:23,920 Speaker 1: like I was checking a box. Why was just spooked? 337 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,080 Speaker 1: I mean the word really is spooked. By being there 338 00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,160 Speaker 1: in that space where I knew that on A Mendietta 339 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,800 Speaker 1: had died. She tried not to seem too nosy, didn't 340 00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,920 Speaker 1: look around the apartment much. Instead, she focused on the 341 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,560 Speaker 1: faces of Carl and his fourth wife, Melissa. They talked briefly, 342 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:42,719 Speaker 1: and then the three of them went to dinner at 343 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,920 Speaker 1: a seafood restaurant. Yeah, it was deeply weird. Then we 344 00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:50,240 Speaker 1: marched down to this fish restaurant and there was really 345 00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:54,600 Speaker 1: a prodigious amount of drinking, not mine. And just noticing 346 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,480 Speaker 1: that and knowing that the story of Carl Andrean on 347 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,480 Speaker 1: A Mendietta was very much also a story of alcohol, 348 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,320 Speaker 1: it must have been weird. It's hard for me to 349 00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:10,080 Speaker 1: fathom even now that Carl's life is so unchanged, He's 350 00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,040 Speaker 1: still in the same apartment, still going out to dinner, 351 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:17,040 Speaker 1: and still drinking too much. I don't want to seem judge. 352 00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,320 Speaker 1: I used to drink very heavily back in the day. 353 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,919 Speaker 1: Every art world event has an open bar. It's almost 354 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,200 Speaker 1: like an occupational hazard. But I know I would have 355 00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:32,720 Speaker 1: watched Carl's alcohol consumption like a hawk too, especially given 356 00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,879 Speaker 1: the huge role Booze played in the story of Anna 357 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,239 Speaker 1: and Carl's relationship. It's just one more thing in our 358 00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:43,320 Speaker 1: culture that we're not supposed to talk about. This culture 359 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,520 Speaker 1: of discretion of what can and cannot be said would 360 00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:51,240 Speaker 1: get played out in the courtroom, especially since the strategy 361 00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:55,200 Speaker 1: for Carl's defense was to keep anyone from saying much 362 00:24:55,400 --> 00:25:03,200 Speaker 1: of anything. The trial began in Earnest on a January 363 00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:07,840 Speaker 1: morning in nineteen eighty eight. In some ways, a trial 364 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,240 Speaker 1: is similar to a museum exhibition. Both are places where 365 00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,320 Speaker 1: a story is being told, and the truth of that 366 00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:22,919 Speaker 1: story matters. Experts get to decide how the story is told, lawyers, judges, curators, 367 00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,639 Speaker 1: and the rules about what evidence or artwork can be 368 00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:32,440 Speaker 1: used to tell those stories are not always straightforward, transparent, 369 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:37,520 Speaker 1: or fair. When you walk into a museum, you only 370 00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,560 Speaker 1: see the artworks that were selected through a careful process 371 00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:44,879 Speaker 1: to tell a particular story. There are always other works 372 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,399 Speaker 1: that are left out that would tell a different story. 373 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,479 Speaker 1: For instance, artworks made by women of color. They are 374 00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,800 Speaker 1: rarely seen, no matter how wonderful they might be in 375 00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,720 Speaker 1: a courtroom. Evidence is also carefully selected before the big 376 00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:04,359 Speaker 1: show the trial, and even evidence that everyone agrees is 377 00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:08,800 Speaker 1: factual can still get left out deemed inadmissible for a 378 00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:13,560 Speaker 1: variety of reasons. When that happens, the judge or jury 379 00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,840 Speaker 1: are not allowed to consider those facts when they formed 380 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:21,080 Speaker 1: their verdict. This was the case in Anna's trial. A 381 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:24,600 Speaker 1: lot of evidence got left out, which means the story 382 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:32,560 Speaker 1: wasn't complete. Natalia Delgado was the first witness called by 383 00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,520 Speaker 1: the prosecution. She had flown to New York from her 384 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,440 Speaker 1: home in Chicago, bringing along her six week old child, 385 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,920 Speaker 1: a little girl she'd named after Anna, and she was 386 00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,760 Speaker 1: ready to testify about the last phone call with Anna 387 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:47,879 Speaker 1: just hours before her death, when Anna had told her 388 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,840 Speaker 1: about her plan to expose Karl as a cheater and 389 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,960 Speaker 1: file for divorce. But I couldn't talk about any of that. 390 00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:59,840 Speaker 1: Any conversation about Anna's plans for divorce was deemed hearsay 391 00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:05,600 Speaker 1: and ruled inadmissible. I couldn't say that I had recommended 392 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,560 Speaker 1: to her that night that she confronted Carl and tell 393 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,200 Speaker 1: him that she'd collected evidence of his infidelity, that she'd 394 00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:17,000 Speaker 1: been photocopying records that would establish his being with these 395 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,040 Speaker 1: other women. I could not say that she feared his anger, 396 00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,600 Speaker 1: that she said he would blow up when she said 397 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:28,119 Speaker 1: this to him. I couldn't establish that she wanted to 398 00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,080 Speaker 1: get a divorce on the grounds of infidelity, and that's 399 00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,160 Speaker 1: why she was collected this information as she feared his reaction. 400 00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,760 Speaker 1: None of that. I could only say she was making 401 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,640 Speaker 1: plans for the future. So what was on Anna's mind 402 00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:47,440 Speaker 1: the night of her death inadmissible. And remember how Natalia 403 00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,680 Speaker 1: was surprised that Carl's lawyer was in the apartment after 404 00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,159 Speaker 1: Carl had been taken to the police station. She was 405 00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,359 Speaker 1: concerned about what would happen to the secret copies of 406 00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:00,480 Speaker 1: phone and credit card bills that Anna had been collecting, 407 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:06,200 Speaker 1: documents she thought proved Karl was being unfaithful. Well, those 408 00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,880 Speaker 1: documents went missing. Even though the apartment was a possible 409 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,679 Speaker 1: crime scene. Even though Karl was at the station for questioning, 410 00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:18,480 Speaker 1: the cops let both Carl's lawyer and maybe one other 411 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,840 Speaker 1: person into the apartment. In an interview after the trial, 412 00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:27,000 Speaker 1: Robert Katz explained what he thought happened to the documents 413 00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:33,320 Speaker 1: that Anna considered evidence of Carl's infidelity. While Carl Andre 414 00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,960 Speaker 1: was being questioned by the police before he was under arrest, 415 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:41,520 Speaker 1: somebody entered the apartment and removed what she called evidence. 416 00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,120 Speaker 1: It turned out this would be one of several police 417 00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:49,240 Speaker 1: errors that would dramatically affect the evidence considered a trial. 418 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,480 Speaker 1: But still there was other evidence that pointed to murder. 419 00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,400 Speaker 1: If Anna had jumped out of the window of her 420 00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,880 Speaker 1: own volition, or even if she had merely closed or 421 00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,960 Speaker 1: opened the window, there would have been footprints on the 422 00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:07,520 Speaker 1: window sill. Here's Robert Katz again. By the configuration of 423 00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,240 Speaker 1: the room would be almost impossible for her to have 424 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,640 Speaker 1: committed suicide with asked somehow getting onto that ledge, the 425 00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,760 Speaker 1: window sill came up Brahma's breast level, and yet they 426 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:22,200 Speaker 1: found no footprints on the window sill. But there was 427 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:27,200 Speaker 1: a problem with this evidence too, another police mistake. The 428 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,600 Speaker 1: police had forgotten to put taking a fingerprints in the 429 00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,360 Speaker 1: search wire, and so the police record showing that there 430 00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,560 Speaker 1: were no footprints on the window sill that was also 431 00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:43,480 Speaker 1: deemed inadmissible. The most convincing pieces of evidence of murder 432 00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,760 Speaker 1: had been to borrow a phrase curated out of the show. 433 00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:51,640 Speaker 1: Ona's desire for a divorce, Anna's evidence of Carl's infidelity, 434 00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,600 Speaker 1: and the proof that Anna had not stood on the 435 00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,800 Speaker 1: window sill. These were all things the judge was not 436 00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:01,560 Speaker 1: allowed to consider. And when the evidence that pointed to 437 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:05,960 Speaker 1: murder was discussed at trial, then the defense worked to 438 00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,720 Speaker 1: sow the seeds of doubt. There was the doorman out 439 00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,040 Speaker 1: on a coffee run who heard a woman yell no, no, no, 440 00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:17,560 Speaker 1: just before Anna fl He was allowed to testify, but 441 00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:21,360 Speaker 1: they discredit hit him by saying he had had some 442 00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,360 Speaker 1: prior psychological issues, so he wasn't a good witness for 443 00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:32,720 Speaker 1: purposes of hearing her screams and hearing the thud. It 444 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,560 Speaker 1: turned out he had been treated several years prior for 445 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:42,160 Speaker 1: auditory hallucinations. His testimony was admissible, but questionable. And what 446 00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,960 Speaker 1: about those scratches, particularly the one on Carl's nose. The 447 00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,440 Speaker 1: scratch was either proof that Anna and Carl had a 448 00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:55,040 Speaker 1: physical altercation that night, or the scratch was just a coincidence. 449 00:30:55,960 --> 00:31:01,280 Speaker 1: Everything came down to when Carl got the scratch. Carl 450 00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,440 Speaker 1: said the terrace door had blown into his face about 451 00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,000 Speaker 1: a week or so before and scratched him, So the 452 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:13,160 Speaker 1: question was, had anyone actually seen a scratch on Carl's 453 00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:20,640 Speaker 1: nose before the night Anna died. The prosecutor had fewer 454 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,560 Speaker 1: witnesses in her corner than she had hoped for. Several 455 00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,200 Speaker 1: people who had seen Carl in the days leading up 456 00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:31,480 Speaker 1: to Anna's death initially said no, Carl had not had 457 00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:35,680 Speaker 1: any scratches, but one by one they started doubting their 458 00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,640 Speaker 1: own memories. The people who had dinner with him didn't 459 00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,040 Speaker 1: want to testify as to whether or not yet those 460 00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:47,720 Speaker 1: deep scratches on his face and arms. She's referring to 461 00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:49,920 Speaker 1: a couple who had dinner with Carl and Anna a 462 00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:53,640 Speaker 1: few days prior to Anna's death. They told the detective 463 00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,520 Speaker 1: they had not noticed any scratches on Karl's face, but 464 00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,800 Speaker 1: later said they couldn't remember. Another witness showed up to 465 00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:06,400 Speaker 1: take the stand, but then suddenly also couldn't remember. Prosecutor 466 00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,160 Speaker 1: Elizabeth Letterer was watching her witnesses fall away one by one. 467 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,840 Speaker 1: Nancy Spirow, a witness who was waiting for her turn 468 00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:17,600 Speaker 1: to testify, remembered the prosecutor growing frustrated as she tried 469 00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,160 Speaker 1: to keep her witnesses on the same page. Here's what 470 00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:26,280 Speaker 1: Nancy said, she was really a little impatient with saying 471 00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:30,640 Speaker 1: that you know that you had told me. I mean, 472 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,320 Speaker 1: I gathered that she had said she hadn't seen it, 473 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:39,040 Speaker 1: and now she changed her story. In the end, Letterer 474 00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,400 Speaker 1: would only call Nancy Spirow to testify about the scratch. 475 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,560 Speaker 1: Nancy sat uncomfortably in the witness chair as her friend 476 00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:51,600 Speaker 1: Carl looked on. She was emphatic there was no scratch, 477 00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,479 Speaker 1: the implication being that it must have been Anna who 478 00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,960 Speaker 1: scratched him on the night of her death. Well, I 479 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,720 Speaker 1: was trying to count trade and to be as honest 480 00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:06,880 Speaker 1: as I could, and I was so rattled as it was. 481 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,080 Speaker 1: It must have been so hard. She and her husband 482 00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:15,240 Speaker 1: had been friends with both Carl and Anna. Carl sat 483 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:20,360 Speaker 1: quietly listening to his friend Nancy Sparrow testify against him. Well, 484 00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,840 Speaker 1: he certainly didn't look at each other directly, but I 485 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,160 Speaker 1: was aware of his presidency. Meanwhile, there were two witnesses 486 00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:31,960 Speaker 1: that said the scratch had been there all along. Carl's 487 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,400 Speaker 1: good friend Laurence Wiener, who had gone to Rikers to 488 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,440 Speaker 1: bail him out, and a woman who worked at Carl's gallery. 489 00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:41,040 Speaker 1: Both took the stand to say that they'd seen Carl 490 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,280 Speaker 1: shortly before Anna's death, and that he did indeed have 491 00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:48,320 Speaker 1: something on his face, maybe a scratch, maybe a pimple. 492 00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:52,360 Speaker 1: Not only did these two witnesses not agree on what 493 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,640 Speaker 1: the mark was, they also didn't agree on where that 494 00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,120 Speaker 1: mark was. Was it his nose or the side of 495 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:05,080 Speaker 1: his face. Either way, the defense addressed the evidence by 496 00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:09,719 Speaker 1: planting seeds of doubt about it. For better or worse, 497 00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:12,360 Speaker 1: the rule of law is designed to work in favor 498 00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:16,000 Speaker 1: of the accused, but this case wasn't only playing out 499 00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,160 Speaker 1: in a courtroom. This case was being discussed in every 500 00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,520 Speaker 1: corner of the art world, because layered on top of 501 00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,760 Speaker 1: the police gaffs, the suppressed evidence, and the seeds of doubt, 502 00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,280 Speaker 1: there was a mixture of betrayal and disbelief that Carl Andre, 503 00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,560 Speaker 1: the metaphorical father of minimalism, the ethical Marxist, the intellectual, 504 00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:40,960 Speaker 1: the supporter of women's causes, could do something so monstrous. 505 00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,400 Speaker 1: Even though Nancy Spirow was willing to testify against Carl, 506 00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,840 Speaker 1: you can hear how ambivalent and confused her husband, artistly 507 00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:53,440 Speaker 1: On Galabi, is at the idea that someone like Carl 508 00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,600 Speaker 1: could do something so horrible. He told Robert Katz, there 509 00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,800 Speaker 1: might be other things at stake than I'm in punishment. 510 00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,759 Speaker 1: You don't want to see such a person brought down, 511 00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:10,120 Speaker 1: because if that person who's brought down the whole range 512 00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:15,880 Speaker 1: of you're what you have thought conceived, the alot is tainted. 513 00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:21,320 Speaker 1: So the best way to protect him was to respect 514 00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,640 Speaker 1: as a wish for rural silence, and also to take 515 00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:29,240 Speaker 1: him at his word. Right, How could Carl, who represents 516 00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,719 Speaker 1: the purity of the desart, how could he have done 517 00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:36,319 Speaker 1: such an act like them? Carol represents something. I can't 518 00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,719 Speaker 1: tell you how important he was symbolically, and that may 519 00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:44,560 Speaker 1: be why Elizabeth Lederer had such difficulty getting people to talk. 520 00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:48,319 Speaker 1: B Ruby Rich remembers how surprised she was about all 521 00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,680 Speaker 1: of it. The assistant DA who was trying the case, 522 00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,759 Speaker 1: said to me that in her career she had never 523 00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:00,120 Speaker 1: encountered a wall of silence like this one, except in 524 00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:05,960 Speaker 1: mafia cases. So I think that the art world was 525 00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:10,400 Speaker 1: a closed world. I certainly agree that the art world 526 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,320 Speaker 1: is a closed world. We are a social formation structured 527 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:18,720 Speaker 1: by deep friendships that mix business with pleasure, love with money, 528 00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:23,359 Speaker 1: and perhaps because the lines between personal and public are 529 00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,200 Speaker 1: so thin, it's a world in which discretion is paramount. 530 00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,640 Speaker 1: But when does discretion become silence? And what happens when 531 00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:49,920 Speaker 1: people get fed up with that silence. We'll come back 532 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,600 Speaker 1: to the trial, but first I'm going fast forward up 533 00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,640 Speaker 1: to the almost present, to a time when so many 534 00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,040 Speaker 1: women were about to take aim at the walls of 535 00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,440 Speaker 1: silence around them. The me Too movement was about to explode, 536 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,760 Speaker 1: and the air seemed filled with the tension that comes 537 00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:11,000 Speaker 1: from being fed up. Now, when carl Andrea's work went 538 00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:15,360 Speaker 1: on view, a generation of artists who revered Ana Mendieta 539 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:19,680 Speaker 1: was vocal about their displeasure, and they showed up to protest. 540 00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,759 Speaker 1: They painted their hands red, linked arms and blocked the 541 00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:33,359 Speaker 1: entrance of a museum in Germany. Cannavanieta was a woman 542 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:37,480 Speaker 1: of color, a refugee, an evidence following her death points 543 00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,840 Speaker 1: towards the domestic violence there was ensu They dramatically cried 544 00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:51,920 Speaker 1: inside the galleries where Andrea's sculptures were displayed. All of 545 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,600 Speaker 1: this was happening as plans were being made to bring 546 00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:58,439 Speaker 1: carl Andrea's retrospective to the museum in Los Angeles, where 547 00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,440 Speaker 1: I had landed my dream job of chief curator. But 548 00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,520 Speaker 1: as the exhibition made its way to LA instead of 549 00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,839 Speaker 1: thinking about Carl, I found myself thinking a lot more 550 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:11,880 Speaker 1: about Anna, And the more I thought about Anna and 551 00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:16,400 Speaker 1: her work, the more uncomfortable I became thinking about Carl 552 00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,279 Speaker 1: and his work. I'd had a serious change of heart. 553 00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:24,560 Speaker 1: Like the protesters, I also didn't think we should be 554 00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:29,080 Speaker 1: celebrating someone who had been accused of murder. But the 555 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:34,400 Speaker 1: reality was the ship had sailed. There was no turning back. Still, 556 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,000 Speaker 1: I felt like I had to do something. But what? 557 00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:42,239 Speaker 1: A few months before the show, I invited a group 558 00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:47,200 Speaker 1: of women I admired, artists, professors, curators to talk it out. 559 00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:52,560 Speaker 1: One of them was an artist named Andrea Bowers. The 560 00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:59,320 Speaker 1: thing I remember about that meeting is one of the 561 00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:06,719 Speaker 1: participation and saying that there would be protests, and then 562 00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:11,000 Speaker 1: another participant saying there will be blood. I do remember 563 00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:16,000 Speaker 1: that because right because there had been this previous protest 564 00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:21,440 Speaker 1: where animal blood had been thrown. Yeah. I really felt 565 00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:31,240 Speaker 1: in a certain way it would require you and others 566 00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,600 Speaker 1: in your position, as well as other artists, to speak 567 00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:39,239 Speaker 1: out publicly against it. But I also felt like you 568 00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,600 Speaker 1: felt like you would not have your job if you 569 00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:50,759 Speaker 1: did that. You were looking for a creative solution. I 570 00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,040 Speaker 1: didn't have the guts to step down at that point. 571 00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:59,880 Speaker 1: I also did not realize the intensity of like institutional 572 00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,719 Speaker 1: kind of submission, Like how can it be that there 573 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,200 Speaker 1: can be so many curators in these institutions and one 574 00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:11,680 Speaker 1: curator can't say I'm uncomfortable with that show. I really 575 00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:18,000 Speaker 1: believe there should be public internal discourse. I mean that's 576 00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:24,280 Speaker 1: a democracy, right, Yeah, this is a pretty common misconception. 577 00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:29,719 Speaker 1: An art museum is definitely not a democracy. In fact, 578 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,719 Speaker 1: they are the opposite of democracy. Like most workplaces, they 579 00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:38,120 Speaker 1: are a very highly evolved hierarchy. The reality was the 580 00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,360 Speaker 1: show was going to go on, which meant, pragmatically speaking, 581 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,360 Speaker 1: all that could be done was some light window dressing. 582 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,279 Speaker 1: We hosted a talk by a feminist art historian, one 583 00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,600 Speaker 1: of the very few who was willing to discuss the 584 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:54,680 Speaker 1: accusations against Carl, the very same person who had also 585 00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,560 Speaker 1: been invited to talk at DIA, But that was it. 586 00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:02,560 Speaker 1: On opening night, felt vaguely nauseous. I couldn't tell what 587 00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:06,320 Speaker 1: I feared more that the protesters would show up or 588 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:13,239 Speaker 1: that they wouldn't. They showed A group of women had 589 00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,680 Speaker 1: lit candles and were handing out small xeroxes with honest 590 00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,320 Speaker 1: picture on them. My wife brought one home and propped 591 00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:23,880 Speaker 1: it up on our kitchen counter. I avoided their somber 592 00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,680 Speaker 1: picket line. That night was the one and only time 593 00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:32,000 Speaker 1: I visited the Carl Andrea exhibition. It was a really 594 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:35,200 Speaker 1: sad night for me, and the next morning, when I 595 00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:38,160 Speaker 1: had my coffee and looked it on his picture, I 596 00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,279 Speaker 1: just couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't down with 597 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:49,440 Speaker 1: business as usual anymore. Next time, on Death of an 598 00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,239 Speaker 1: Artist it was totally blamed the victim, but with an 599 00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:55,880 Speaker 1: extra twist. They were trying to establish that she killed herself, 600 00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,400 Speaker 1: like this was some sort of culminating art piece. Judges 601 00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,239 Speaker 1: tend to be more meticulous about what a reasonable doubt is. 602 00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,040 Speaker 1: This is press play. I'm Malone brand. Let's talk now 603 00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,880 Speaker 1: about some bad news that's hit a couple of local museums. 604 00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:15,279 Speaker 1: Death of an Artist is a co production between Pushkin Industries, 605 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,239 Speaker 1: Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment. Written and hosted by 606 00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:24,800 Speaker 1: me Helen Mouldsworth. Executive producers are Lizzie Jacobs, Tom Kinig, Lietamlad, 607 00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,000 Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg and Lucas Werner. Produced by Maria Luisa Tucker, 608 00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:33,200 Speaker 1: editing by Lizzie Jacobs. Our managing producer is Jacob Smith. 609 00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:37,960 Speaker 1: Associate producers are pood Ru and Eloise Linton. Additional production 610 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:41,920 Speaker 1: helped by Tally Abacassas. Anamandieta's quotes were read by Tanya 611 00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,320 Speaker 1: burgera special thanks to the New York Public Radio Archive, 612 00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:50,160 Speaker 1: engineered by Sam Baar, fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. 613 00:42:50,680 --> 00:43:00,080 Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Pooge Rue. If you of 614 00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:03,600 Speaker 1: this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus to listen early, 615 00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,000 Speaker 1: add free and get exclusive bonus content. Look for the 616 00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:11,320 Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. 617 00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,879 Speaker 1: Find more great podcasts from Sonymusic Entertainment at sonymusic dot 618 00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,040 Speaker 1: com Backslash Podcasts