The passing of Walter Robinson last year caused quite a stir in the art world. More than just a successful artist and art writer, the engaging and long active Robinson (1950 – 2025) was a point of connection for several generations of downtown artists. He literally knew everyone! Some remembered his biting wit and sarcasm; others admired his willingness to push the limits of convention both as a critic and artist; while many others recalled how he provided them with their first opportunities as either writers or artists. He was respected by all.
This coming Saturday, 2 May, the Jeffrey Deitch gallery at 18 Wooster Street will open the large posthumous exhibition Walter Robinson: Let the Music Play. To complement the exhibition, Gallery 98 has assembled here an assortment of Robinson ephemera that touches on key moments in his multi-faceted career.
The earliest items date from the 1970s, when Robinson met future collaborators Edit deAk and Joshua Cohn in an art history course at Columbia University. The three later attended the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, and then started Art-Rite, a low budget, DIY publication. Cohn dropped out quickly, but Robinson and deAk persisted, and published twenty issues over a five-year period.
Robinson’s life in the 1980s was full and varied. He was the arts editor at The East Village Eye, and the sharp-tongued commentator on the cable television show GalleryBeat TV. He was also active in Collaborative Projects Inc. (COLAB), the artist group that organized the Times Square Show, and the art spaces ABC No Rio and Fashion Moda. In addition, Robinson’s paintings were being exhibited at commercial galleries like Metro Pictures, where they easily fit in with the work of artists later known as the Pictures Generation movement.
In 1995 Robinson hit the journalistic bigtime when he was appointed as the founding editor at Artnet Magazine, the first exclusively online art journal. It was a demanding, full-time job that established Robinson as an influential critic, but ultimately prevented him from pursuing his own work. When his time as Artnet editor ended in 2012, Robinson returned fulltime to the easel. His art career developed quickly, with highlights that included Barry Blinderman’s 2014 catalogue Walter Robinson: Paintings and Other Indulgences, and a large exhibition at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in 2016. He also had multiple exhibitions throughout Europe and America, but sadly, when it looked like Robinson’s art career was just getting started, it was suddenly cut short by cancer in 2025.
Walter Robinson: Let The Music Play
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, opening Saturday, May 2
Walter Robinson, Edit deAk and Joshua Cohn at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, 1973
In 1973 Walter along with his Art-Rite collaborators Edit deAk and Joshua Cohn were admitted into the prestigious Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. The class was assigned to create an exhibition and an exhibition guide about the Whitney Museum and its collection. Passing over more conventional selections, they spotlighted performance, as well as conceptual and political art, which were unusual choices at the time.
Size: 5.25 x 5.25 inches.
Walter Robinson: Critic, Writer, and Editor
For most of his career Robinson was better known as an art-writer than as a painter. Along with Edit deAk, he was the main force behind Art-Rite, a low-budget independent art publication. From 1995 – 2012, he was the founding editor of Artnet, the first online art magazine.
Art-Rite Magazine, 1973 – 1978
Art-Rite was a barely solvent, do-it-yourself publication freely distributed in art galleries. Editors Walter Robinson and Edit deAk attracted an audience with a mix of older artists who challenged convention, as well as, provocative younger artists. In 2019, the importance of Art-Rite was acknowledged, when Primary Information and Printed Matter published a compilation featuring its full run of 20 issues.
Walter Robinson and Collaborative Projects Inc. (COLAB)
As Robinson became more active as a painter, he joined Collaborative Projects Inc. (COLAB), an artist group that epitomized the DIY spirit of the 1980s. He participated in many of the group’s theme exhibitions, and was especially active at ABC No Rio, a COLAB-affiliated art space. For a short period Walter was the group’s director.
COLAB’s Artist-run “A More Stores”
Each December, during the holiday season, COLAB organized “A More Stores,” where artists could sell low-priced works directly to gift-buyers. In creating art for these stores, Robinson honed his populist skills by learning to identify subject-matter that appealed to both art, and non-art audiences.
Pictures Generation Artist
As a painter, Robinson was strongly influenced by popular media culture. His goal was to discover items that people were attracted to — pulp fiction and romance paperbacks, dolls, kittens, money and hamburgers. At the time, many thought that Robinson was an example of “neo-pop.” He was later grouped with other contemporaries, christened as Pictures Generation in a 2009 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum.
Walter Robinson: Artist Provocateur, a Film by Paul Tschinkel, 2019
Paul Tschinkel’s 2019 video captures Robinson’s offbeat and often very amusing ideas about what makes great art. You can click the image below for a short preview of the film.
A publicity still for Walter Robinson: Artist Provocateur, a film by Paul Tschinkel; photo courtesy ART/new york 2019. The full 51 minute film can be streamed on Vimeo.
