The artist Judy Pfaff, known for her dynamic, site-specific installations that fuse painting, assemblage, and architecture, joined her friend and fellow artist Joe Fig at Independent 20th Century for a wide-ranging conversation about her career and creative practice. Their discussion coincided with Cristin Tierney Gallery’s solo presentation of Pfaff’s historic works at the fair, and anticipated the inauguration of the gallery’s new space on 49 Walker Street, with the solo show Judy Pfaff: Light Years, on view through December 20th. Below are highlights from the discussion, edited for brevity and clarity.
Joe Fig: Judy, your work is very painterly and your installations are mentioned as painting in space. Were you ever a painter and if so, how did you transition from painting to sculpture?
Judy Pfaff: I was a painter. At Washington University in Saint Louis, I studied painting and printmaking. And at Yale, I came in as a painter and left—not a painter. And that was because Yale had this system back then. This is in the early 1970s, where you would have this open area for critiques called “the pit”. You brought your paintings in, set them up, and then this row of men would go at them. You weren’t allowed to speak and no other student was allowed to either. And I thought, that is just not right. So I decided to put things in the wall in my studio so I could not bring them down, and I got out of all of the critiques and I thought it was brilliant and that started it.
But also my teacher Al Held was married to Sylvia Stone, who was a sculptor. And he was best friends with Eva Hesse, who died right before I came to Yale. And I was just nuts about her and her work and what it stood for. She was brilliant and charming and a flirt, so I’ve heard.
Joe Fig: After Yale, you moved to New York. Who were you hanging out with at the time? What was the art scene in New York like?
Judy Pfaff: I think because I was the only woman in my class—and at that time, by the way, there were no women teachers, or very few, in art schools—I was offered real, full-time jobs at major institutions. I chose to teach a class or two at Queens College. I worked at a frame shop, at Jared Bark Frameworks, which let me meet a lot of people. And I was hanging out with Bill Jensen, one of the great painters, Al of course, Alex Katz, Elizabeth Murray. Paula Cooper Gallery at that time was on Worcester Street, right above the frame shops. So I could go into Paula Cooper’s every day if I wanted to, and I met Joel Shapiro and that whole group that was affiliated there.
But mostly I was busy. I had about three or four jobs. Al Held gave me my first show at Irving Sandler’s Artist Space in 1974. I’d only been in New York one year, and then the next year I was in the Whitney Biennial in 1975. Things were going so fast, I don’t even think I paid attention. I just thought that’s the way it was always going to be, I guess.
There was a lot of drinking and there were a lot of parties. And every location had a different group that was there. All the way downtown was much more blue chip in a certain way. Prince Street Bar was probably the first elegant bar. The Broome Street Bar was full of working class people and poets. Gordon Matta-Clark opened FOOD. It’s a different world now, it really is. I don’t see any of that kind of—it wasn’t comradery, it was just that the number of artists was 500 instead of 10 million. It’s really different. And you were talking all the time.
