1973
In "The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning" (1973), Dore Ashton provides a sociological and historical autopsy of the Abstract Expressionist movement and its aftermath. While the book focuses on the "heroic" era of painters like Pollock and Rothko, its 1973 publication coincides with Max Neuhaus actively dismantling the very "myth of the artist" that Ashton’s book chronicles.
The "Cultural Reckoning" and the Neuhaus Pivot
Ashton’s book explores how the New York School shifted art from the studio to a global stage. Neuhaus, emerging in the wake of this "reckoning," applied these same high-modernist stakes to a medium the painters ignored: the urban soundscape.
The Rejection of the "Canvas": Just as the New York School painters rejected traditional representation for the "arena" of the canvas, Neuhaus rejected the "proscenium" of the concert hall for the "arena" of the city. In 1973, as this book was released, Neuhaus was installing Walkthrough in a Brooklyn subway station—effectively treating the transit system as his "all-over" canvas.