Willoughby Sharp


Willoughby Sharp was an American artist, independent curator, independent publisher, gallerist, teacher, author, and telecom activist.
Since 1969, Sharp has had more than 20 solo exhibitions at museums, and art galleries such as:
Brown University; the University Art Museum, Berkeley, California; The Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco; CAYA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; the University of Iowa; the Ontario College of Art, Toronto; the University of California, Los Angeles; the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Pumps Gallery, Vancouver. His work has also been seen in many group shows in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Early life

Sharp was born in New York City. He attended Brown University, where he studied art history and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1957. He undertook graduate study in art history at the University of Paris, the University of Lausanne, and Columbia University.

Career

Sharp began his media work in 1967 by shooting a small number of films in 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm including “Earth,” and “Place & Process,”. After these films, he produced a body of video works in 1/2, 3/4 and 1-inch tape. These works included video sculpture, video installations, “Videoviews,”, Videoperformances, cable television programs, and broadcast TV programs.
In February 1969, at the invitation of Hans Haacke, he presented a three-part video installation, “Earthscopes,” at Cooper Union, N.Y., which included the singular showing of a video catalogue of the historic “Earth Art” exhibition that he curated at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. In March 1969, Sharp created “Einstein’s Eye,” a closed-circuit b/w video sculpture exhibited at the Richard L. Feigen Gallery in Soho, N.Y.
The following year, Sharp's film “Place and Process” was included in MoMA’s “INFORMATION” exhibition curated by Kynaston McShine. Also in 1970, Sharp curated “Body Works,” an exhibition of Video art with works by Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Terry Fox, Keith Sonnier, Dennis Oppenheim and William Wegman at Tom Marioni's Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, California.
In 1971, Sharp created Points of View: A Taped Conversation with Four Painters, for Arts Magazine, a live interview with painters: Ronnie Landfield, Brice Marden, Larry Poons, and John Walker.
Between 1970 and 1972, Sharp began work the on the “Videoviews”, a series of dialogues with artists using one of the first Sony 3400 Porta-Pac video recording systems at San Jose State TV studios. The series consists of Sharp's dialogues with Bruce Nauman, Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Lowell Darling, and Dennis Oppenheim. Later, while working with ARTENGINE, N.Y., Sharp produced a series of 30-minute documentary programs on Dennis Oppenheim, Keith Sonnier, Earle Brown, and Morton Subotnick.
In 1976, under an NEA grant to Center for New Art Activities, Inc., he co-produced with Liza Béar Five Video Pioneers: Vito Acconci, Richard Serra, Willoughby Sharp, Keith Sonnier, William Wegman. That year, he also represented the United States in the Venice Biennale.
Shortly afterward, Sharp began production on a series of international, multi-casting, pre-Internet projects which simultaneously interlaced information from computers, telefax, In September 1977, he participated in Send/Receive Satellite Network: Phase II, co-produced and directed by Keith Sonnier and Liza Béar in collaboration with a group of San Francisco and New York artists; this was the first trans-continental interactive satellite work made by artists. His participation in Send/Receive in part led to Sharp's current preoccupation with global collaborative work through a series of interactive telecommunications and streaming transmissions. This ongoing series of projects honors the accomplishments of electrical geniuses Guglielmo Marconi, Heinrich Hertz and Nikola Tesla. In 2006 his interview with Serkan Ozkaya has been published under the title Have You Ever Done Anything Right? in English and Spanish, by Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien and Smart Art Press.

Magazine contributions

In 1968, Sharp co-founded Avalanche magazine with filmmaker Liza Béar and published interviews they conducted with contemporary artists such as Vito Acconci, Dennis Oppenheim, William Wegman, and Yvonne Rainer.
Sharp has been the contributing editor to four publications: Impulse ; Video magazine; Art Com, and the East Village Eye. He has published three monographs on contemporary artists, contributed to many exhibition catalogues, and has written articles, essays, and interviews featured in Artforum, Art in America, Arts magazine, Laica Journal, Quadrum, Rhobo, and Studio International.

Collaboration with Joseph Beuys

In 1958, Sharp met Joseph Beuys in Düsseldorf and maintained a close, collaborative relationship until Beuys' death in 1986. Sharp was influential in bringing Beuys’ work to the attention of the American art world. Starting with an ARTFORUM interview, Beuys was also featured in the first issue of Avalanche magazine. In 1972, Sharp produced the which constituted Beuys’ first solo show at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., N.Y. He also produced “Public Dialogue” in which Beuys performed as part of the “Videoperformance” exhibition Sharp curated din 1974. In 1974, at Beuys’ request, Sharp videotaped “I Like America, America Likes Me” his performance at the Rene Block Gallery, New York City, which has recently been released as “America”. In 1979, Beuys invited Sharp to curate the film/video sections of his retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Teaching career

Sharp taught on the faculties of the School of Visual Arts, Humanities and Science Department ; the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, where he was also the director of the Fine Arts Center ; and the New School University, Parsons The New School for Design, Graduate Faculty, Digital Design Department, N.Y..

Death

Sharp died of throat cancer at the age of 72 on December 17, 2008 in the Lower East Side.
On October 15, 2009, a memorial was held for Sharp at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Speakers included Dennis Oppenheim, Les Levine, Ronald Feldman, Liza Bear, Carolee Schneeman, and his widow Pamela Seymour Smith Sharp.

Curatorial work

Beginning in 1964, Sharp curated numerous exhibitions, including:
Sharp has received numerous grants, awards, and fellowships both as an individual or under the sponsorship of the three non-profit arts organizations that he co-founded.
His video and film works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, N.Y.; ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany; The Collection of the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island; the National Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada; The Western Front, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, as well as many private collections worldwide.

Body of work