Make Art, Not War
A conversation with New York artist Dove Bradshaw
Exhibition at ARTe VallARTa Museo, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico | Zero Time, Zero Space, Infinite Heat
February 2nd – May 5th, 2024
Meet with Dove Bradshaw at ARTe VallARTa Museo on February 3rd, 2024
The first time I visited the apartment of conceptual and minimalist artist Dove Bradshaw, I barely let my eyes wander around the living room, busy with paintings and books everywhere, a piano in a corner, and an old chess table. Two friends had asked me to join them for an intimate dinner at Dove and her husband’s, artist William Anastasi (also known as Bill), Upper West Side home, blocks away from Morningside Heights and the Hudson River. I vividly recalled this evening when, years after, Dove invited me back, this time to show a few people some of the artwork soon to be exhibited in Puerto Vallarta at ARTe VallARTa Museo. “A first for this museum, which had presented only Mexican artists before,” and a premiere in Mexico for this artist, whose work is part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum and MoMA in New York.
As I was riding the Broadway-Seventh Avenue 1 train to 103rd Street, I remembered how her husband—who passed away just a few weeks ago—had described his famous Subway Drawings. Every time Bill Anastasi would sit in a subway, he would balance a piece of paper on a board on his knees, close his eyes, and let a pencil or felt-tip pens draw lines as the train would vibrate, and lurch when it stopped at a station, and depart again until he reached his chosen destination. During my only dinner with him, his wife, and our shared friends, Bill told endless stories of his daily chess games with composer John Cage. Dove Bradshaw, Anastasi, Cage, and his companion, choreographer Merce Cunningham, formed a band of artistry and friendship for years, all dedicated to conceptual art, along with Carl André, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Ryman.
Make Art, not War
