0:07

Pushkin.

0:18

This show contains adult language

0:20

and occasional descriptions of violence. Please

0:23

keep that in mind when choosing when and

0:25

where to listen. Previously

0:29

on Death of an Artist, she's

0:32

making photocopies and she

0:34

wanted to use that for her

0:36

divorce on grounds of infidelity. I

0:38

find that my roots are Cuban. The branches

0:41

might be American, but the trunk

0:43

of the tree is Cuban or

0:46

the roots. You know, she was not a santea.

0:48

She was not dressed in white. There is a

0:50

very big difference between a practitioner

0:53

of santea and somebody

0:55

who studies or uses

0:57

it as a way of working

0:59

with culture. I

1:09

want to take you back to nineteen eighties

1:11

Manhattan. In those days, you

1:13

could actually smoke in the hallways of the courtroom,

1:16

and many a jury weight took

1:19

place in the hallways with people smoking

1:21

cigarettes and playing cards and things like

1:23

that. It was gritty.

1:27

That's Ron Koubi, a long time

1:29

New York City defense lawyer. He's

1:32

going to be our tour guide through the legal dynamics

1:34

of Carl's trial. The

1:39

city had suffered a recession. Crime

1:42

was rampim. There had been a spate

1:44

of high profile horrors. I

1:46

remember taking the subway to school and reading

1:48

the ominous headlines in the post or the daily

1:51

news. Fear was in the air,

1:53

and much of it played on white people's deep

1:56

seated racism that equated crime

1:58

with people of color. The judges

2:01

were almost exclusively

2:04

white, the defendants

2:07

were almost exclusively

2:10

people of color. And the almost

2:12

there is important because, oh,

2:15

from nineteen eighty five through

2:18

eighty eight eighty nine, there was a plethora

2:20

of defendants in cases that I'll

2:23

just call white boys

2:25

behaving badly. There was

2:27

the Robert Chambers case. That's

2:30

the so called preppy murder case. Chambers

2:33

claimed his friend Jennifer Levin accidentally

2:36

died during rough sex. This

2:38

trial was actually happening just down the

2:40

hall from Carl Andre's trial and

2:42

was getting all the media attention.

2:45

Paul Castellano, who was rubbed

2:47

out at the steakhouse in

2:49

plain View on the street again

2:52

being a crime family mafio so killed

2:54

in a hit ordered by John Gotti. There

2:57

was Bernard gets, the white

2:59

man who shot four young African

3:01

American teenagers on the subway in

3:03

a highly dubious act of vigilante

3:06

justice, and of course less

3:08

well known but still significant

3:10

in the art world, there was Carl Andre

3:14

This was the backdrop of Carl's trial,

3:17

a swirl of high profile cases

3:19

of white men accused of murder.

3:22

The new Assistant DA on the case was

3:24

Elizabeth Letterer, and by nineteen

3:27

eighty eight she was ready to go to

3:29

trial. Several of Anna's

3:31

friends rallied and joined Anna's family

3:34

in the courthouse to witness the proceedings.

3:37

One of the people who attended almost every

3:39

day was b Ruby Rich. She

3:41

remembers a stark scene. There's

3:44

an aisle down the middle, and one side

3:46

is reserved for the

3:49

defendants friends and family, and

3:51

the other sides reserved for the victim's

3:53

friends and family. It's exactly

3:55

a bad wedding where one side

3:58

of the family disapproves of the marriage, as

4:00

I think they did in fact disapprove

4:02

of the marriage. On his side

4:05

was packed with friends and family, while

4:07

Carl's side remained empty.

4:09

He had apparently asked his friends and

4:11

supporters not to come to the courthouse.

4:15

All of Carl's friends were

4:17

telling people in the art world not to

4:19

go. Carl doesn't want

4:21

you there, and under the guise

4:24

of sensitivity,

4:28

you know you don't want to see Carl like this

4:30

was kind of the implication of it. Under that guise,

4:33

nobody knew what was going on. They prevented

4:36

people from actually hearing the

4:38

testimony, from actually hearing the evidence,

4:41

from actually finding out what had gone on.

4:44

This would come to feel symbolic of the whole affair.

4:47

For honest people, it was a profoundly

4:49

public matter that demanded visibility,

4:52

and for Carl's people, it was a situation

4:55

to be kept private. You can

4:57

publicize his works, but you can't talk about his private

4:59

life with That's Carl's defense

5:01

lawyer Jack Hoffinger, Carl

5:04

Andre is an extremely private person.

5:06

I mean he doesn't want a photograph taken. Carl

5:09

Andre has never talked publicly,

5:11

and I doubt that he's talked really privately about

5:13

this case to anybody.

5:17

This image of Karl alone in

5:19

the courtroom, no friends,

5:22

no family, is both tragic

5:24

and chilling. We can see a

5:26

man bereft, a man on the brink

5:28

of losing everything, or we

5:31

can see a man set apart from others

5:34

because of his intellect, his power

5:36

to transform the history of art, his

5:38

genius. I'm

5:41

your host. Helen Wallsworth from Pushkin

5:43

Industries, Something Else and Sony

5:45

Music entertainment. This is

5:48

Death of an Artist, Episode

5:56

four. The Genius Problem.

6:02

Here's the thing, and this is probably

6:04

going to feel familiar. When a super

6:06

talented man, someone who's been

6:08

called a genius, gets accused of harming

6:10

someone they're fans meaning

6:13

us, Well, it turns

6:16

out we don't really want to believe it, at

6:18

least not at first and not for a

6:20

long time. Roman Polanski,

6:23

Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby,

6:25

Woody Allen. So when

6:28

Carl was accused of honest murder,

6:30

there was a sense of shock on two levels.

6:33

City Confidential, a cheesy true

6:35

crime TV show, described the

6:37

art world's reaction. There

6:40

was shock on the Sheik Streets of Solo

6:45

to the shock was that Carl

6:47

had murdered on it and you

6:50

others. It was a shock that anyone

6:52

could possibly accused the Great

6:54

Carl Andre of something

6:56

so heinous. But

7:01

when Carl finally stood trial, his

7:03

defense team recognized that the folks

7:05

in the art world who thought he was a genius

7:08

were not going to be the ones deciding

7:10

his fate. A typical jury

7:12

in Manhattan in the late nineteen eighties

7:15

would have largely been civil servants

7:17

and retired veterans. They

7:19

probably weren't going to be impressed by

7:21

an avant garde art star. This

7:23

is a guy who throws pieces

7:26

of metal on a floor, throws

7:29

some bricks on top. You know, he's

7:31

sort of the classic definition

7:34

of art about which

7:36

people say, I don't know much

7:38

about art, but I know shit when I

7:41

see it. Okay,

7:45

Carl wasn't throwing pieces of metal

7:47

or bricks on the floor. But it's

7:49

true that Carl made sculptures that challenge

7:52

the very idea of art, so

7:54

I can forgive the folks who couldn't see

7:57

it as art. And it's

7:59

also true that Carl came to trial wearing

8:01

his usual overalls and carrying

8:03

a tote bag filled with newspapers and

8:05

books. He arrived early every

8:08

day, read the paper, and remained

8:10

silent. But even though he

8:12

was wearing working class overalls, he

8:15

lived in a luxury high rise apartment,

8:18

traveled to Europe for art exhibitions,

8:20

and sold his work for handsome prices.

8:23

All of this contradiction probably

8:25

wasn't going to endear him to a jury.

8:30

Carl Andre is a remarkably

8:33

and was a remarkably unsympathetic

8:36

character. First of all, there's

8:39

his look. He's a big hulking

8:42

guy. He's

8:44

affecting a working class

8:47

attitude, but he's not. The

8:53

question the lawyers and Carl were faced

8:55

with was how in the world

8:57

do you explain his art and his lifestyle

9:00

to the everyday folks who make up the jury

9:02

pool in Manhattan. But

9:04

the judge, Alvin Schlessinger, was

9:07

not an everyday person. Schlessinger

9:10

fancied himself as a more

9:12

sophisticated person, somebody

9:14

who appreciated arts

9:17

and culture and all of those kinds

9:19

of things, you know, theater and opera and

9:22

art, and so he would naturally

9:24

be a more sympathetic

9:27

audience to Andre and his

9:29

work than your average jury

9:31

of twelve plus alternates. Journalist

9:35

Robert Katz was there when Carl's defense

9:38

team hit upon their fundamental strategy.

9:41

He described the moment in a radio interview

9:44

after the trial. Jack

9:46

Hoffinger stood up and said, my

9:48

client wishes to waive a jury. And

9:51

everybody looked around, and nobody really understood

9:53

what he meant, because no one could remember

9:55

the last time anybody had ever waived a jury

9:58

and murder trial. It's a very very rare event. That

10:01

was truly an amazing surprise in

10:03

a decision that would have lasting implications.

10:06

He opted for a bench trial, which

10:09

means the judge and only the judge,

10:11

decides the verdict. On the

10:13

one hand, it makes sense to me that Karl

10:16

foregoes a jury trial. I can

10:18

totally see how he would have seemed very

10:20

weird to people. And it also

10:23

makes sense to me that he didn't choose

10:25

a jury trial, because, let's face

10:27

it, a genius is going to have

10:29

a hard time finding a jury

10:31

of their peers. Honest

10:34

friends viewed the decision to waive a jury

10:36

as cynical. The art world's

10:39

very special, very special. This

10:41

is when people used to say, don't go above fourteenth

10:43

Street because all the Vulgarians

10:46

are there. They don't understand truth,

10:49

they don't understand beauty, they don't understand

10:51

meaning nobody else could understand

10:54

the full genius of a figure

10:56

like Carl andre Or. I think,

10:59

frankly, nobody us could understand that Anna's

11:01

life didn't matter. For

11:20

some people, Carl's work was too important

11:23

to be tethered to the actions of a flawed

11:25

man. And for other

11:27

people, whatever happened that night was private.

11:31

And because whatever happened that night was private,

11:33

it had no place in discussions of his work.

11:37

This kind of thinking is in the very dna

11:40

of how art history is taught. So

11:43

imagine a pact room in a library.

11:46

That's the art historian Julia Brian

11:48

Wilson. She's taking

11:50

us back to the late nineteen nineties when

11:52

she was a young grad student at UC Berkeley,

11:55

the heart of leftist intellectual life

11:58

and renowned for its stars studded

12:00

art history department. A visiting

12:02

scholar was in town to give a lecture on

12:04

Carl Andre, and the room was packed.

12:08

One of the folks in the room was Julia, a

12:10

punk rock kid from Houston, a

12:12

far cry from the girls with pearls

12:14

back east who typically populated

12:17

art history departments. I

12:19

think I might have still been wearing like this

12:22

lab coat that I sometimes wore as a dress

12:24

that I had stolen because I was quite a little

12:27

thief in my riot girl days,

12:29

you know, not the usual

12:31

uniform of the art history graduate student.

12:36

The speaker talked in formal terms

12:38

about Carl Andre, using the buzzword

12:40

of the nineties, horizontality.

12:43

That's horizontality as opposed

12:45

to verticality. Instead of

12:47

thinking about uplifting monuments or

12:50

upward progress, folks were

12:52

interested in the horizontal as a metaphor

12:54

for non hierarchical thinking, think

12:57

crabgrass versus a tree, sib

13:00

and cousins versus parent and child.

13:03

But Julia was thinking about another

13:05

version of horizontality, mouth

13:08

agape at the fact that forty five to

13:10

fifty minutes had gone by talking

13:12

about this, that the other, about

13:14

Carl Andre and again that this key term

13:16

of horizontality, where in my mind, I'm

13:19

thinking Anna Mendietta, you

13:21

know, died in the

13:23

most brutal way. And the fact that there

13:25

is no mention of this, I just can't believe

13:28

it to intone horizontality

13:31

with all of its implications of the ground

13:33

and of gravity, and to leave out

13:36

how Anna died. That felt

13:38

like not just an art history problem, but

13:41

a history history problem. Why

13:43

was the story so incomplete? And

13:46

I was just boiling with rage

13:48

in my seat in the lecture room.

13:50

People were asking questions that

13:53

had to do with the formal terms that the speaker

13:55

was laying out, and no one was engaging with

13:57

what to me seemed like the bigger moral

14:00

aches of like why are you giving airtime to

14:02

this artist? So heart

14:04

pounding, the young grad student stood

14:07

up and asked her question, what

14:09

about Anna Mendieta. Where does

14:11

she fit into this discussion? She

14:14

just dismissed it. Me just feeling like I

14:16

cannot believe what this discipline permits

14:18

and what it erases, and just my

14:20

baptism, I would say, by fire into art history,

14:23

which was really like, you are here to

14:25

learn this cannon, and this cannon

14:27

is pretty fixed. I

14:30

was just constantly at sea, always

14:32

just hating the discipline in a way

14:35

while also trying to ingratiate myself to

14:37

it. I mean, I still feel that way. I still

14:39

very much feel that way. Julia

14:42

had just walked into one of art history's

14:44

brick walls, the wall that separates

14:47

the artist and their life from the artwork

14:49

they make. I

14:55

want to go back to Peter Sheldall, the fabulous

14:57

art critic for The New Yorker, the art

15:00

who loved Carl Andre's work but disliked

15:02

his personality. See

15:05

if all the minimalists were assholes,

15:09

and you're walking through

15:11

the gauntlet to get to the strawberry shortcake

15:13

at the back of Max's, you

15:16

had made some kind of peace

15:19

or understanding that you

15:23

could like artwork made by people

15:25

who you didn't like personally.

15:27

It sounds like Oh yeah,

15:29

I mean that just seemed to me

15:32

a given a start.

15:34

We don't give a car of Aggio grief for being

15:37

a murderer, you know, which he absolutely

15:40

was. The controversy about Ezra

15:42

Pound after a Second World War, it

15:45

was a kind of a watershed

15:47

for me that, you know, he had been a traitor

15:50

and a Semitic propagandist

15:52

agi American during the war and

15:55

then after where he was given a hugely

15:58

christ ticket bowling in a war, and

16:01

then he he copied an

16:03

insanity plea and got, you know, put

16:05

in a metal hospital for a while. And

16:07

there was a big debate about it, and I said, no,

16:11

you know, gave him the bowling an award

16:13

and put him the fucking jail. So

16:17

it's not that Peter Sheldall or the professor

16:19

who gave the talk at you see, Berkeley necessarily

16:22

thought Carl was innocent. It's

16:24

that they thought it didn't matter when

16:26

you were looking at his work. I

16:29

never met her, but you know I knew of her,

16:31

and she was not going to throw herself out a window.

16:33

And you know he has scrat from our

16:36

fantics face they were fighting. Did its

16:38

squalidness ever make you not

16:40

want to go and see his show. No

16:45

no, I kept going for you to shows, so

16:49

shell Doll, like so many in the art

16:51

world, like me, for instance, kept

16:54

going to his shows because

16:56

whatever Carl Andre did or did

16:58

not do in his personal life, his

17:01

work was and would remain fill

17:03

in the blank canonical great

17:06

genius historical. The

17:11

art world doesn't have the statistics that govern

17:13

the world of sports, but it does have its

17:15

own version of being a goat, and

17:18

that's genius, and it

17:20

is the art world's highest praise. The

17:23

word typically refers to someone who did

17:25

something no one had ever done before. So

17:28

Picasso is a genius because he invented

17:30

cubism. Warhole is a genius

17:32

because he bridged the gap between art and popular

17:35

culture. Carl Andrea is a genius

17:37

because he solved the problem of sculpture's

17:40

relationship to the floor. By

17:42

the time of Anna's death, though, feminists

17:45

were starting to scrutinize the whole idea

17:47

of artistic genius, because

17:50

while genius seems like a good thing,

17:52

it was hard to overlook the fact that what the

17:55

term seemed to describe was male

17:57

genius, which really meant white

17:59

male genie. Some

18:04

of the loudest and funniest feminist

18:06

voices in the art world are an anonymous

18:09

group of women called the Gorilla Girls. That's

18:12

gorilla spelled like rebel fighter, not

18:15

the primate. The Gorilla

18:17

Girls are all anonymous and use the

18:19

names of famous dead women artists. We

18:22

talked to the Gorilla Girl free to CALLO.

18:25

We decided from the very beginning that we had

18:27

to be anonymous because we

18:29

really didn't want to bite

18:32

the hand that we hoped would feed us.

18:35

It would be very damaging to

18:37

one's career to complain in public

18:39

like that because the art world is, you know, is

18:42

such a kind of self

18:44

congratulatory place at

18:47

that time. They didn't want to hear anything negative.

18:50

The way they protect their identity out in public

18:53

is by wearing gorilla masks this

18:55

time spelled like the primate. The

18:58

gorilla girls we spoke to would not tell

19:00

us their real names or turn on their cameras

19:02

during the interviews, and the secrecy

19:05

works to this day. I still

19:07

don't know who is and is not a

19:09

gorilla girl. We wanted

19:12

to confound stereotypes.

19:14

Gorillas are not the vicious,

19:17

violent animal or culture

19:19

casts on them. They're vegetarian,

19:22

peaceful animals that live in large

19:24

groups of females and the hilarious

19:27

masks. In a way, it's become

19:29

our hallmark, and to be honest,

19:32

I think it allows us to say things that

19:34

we might not be able to say through

19:37

our own identities. And the visuals

19:40

of it is absolutely crazy picture.

19:44

It a bunch of women in miniskirts and

19:46

gorilla masks using humor to poke

19:48

fun at the absurdities of the white,

19:50

male dominated art world. Their

19:53

primary form of attack were posters

19:56

that combine jokes with found images.

19:58

Basically, they memes, and

20:01

instead of posting them on Instagram, they

20:03

put them up all around New York City. In

20:06

nineteen eighty five, we

20:08

put up a poster saying, you know, these galleries

20:11

show fewer than ten percent women artists,

20:13

are none at all? Was

20:15

it really just a mistake or some kind

20:18

of terrible oversight that there were almost

20:20

no women geniuses in art history

20:22

books and so few women represented

20:25

in galleries and museums. Part

20:28

of the genius myth is that the genius

20:30

is a solitary figure. He is

20:32

a lone wolf. He is not hemmed

20:34

in by conventional thinking or

20:36

the rules and rags of everyday life. A

20:39

genius does not do the dishes, or

20:41

shop for dinner, or raise children. It's

20:44

a hard category for women to be a

20:46

part of. One of

20:48

the Guerrilla girls most famous posters

20:50

is called The Advantages of being

20:53

a Woman Artist. It has

20:55

a list of perks that include working

20:57

without the pressure of success, knowing

21:00

that your career might pick up after your eighty

21:03

and not having to undergo the embarrassment

21:05

of being called a genius. The

21:08

other thing about genius is it always

21:10

trump's bad behavior. There

21:12

was this crazy thing called artistic

21:15

license, which meant that artists

21:17

get excused because whatever

21:20

it is that they produce is so much more important

21:22

than whatever damage they could do to people

21:24

in their lives. Even

21:28

though Anna died in nineteen eighty five, it

21:30

would be a decade before the Guerrilla Girls

21:32

would tackle the problem of Carl Andrea

21:35

and Anna Mendieta head on. They

21:38

weren't alone. Critics like Peter Sheldall

21:40

and curators like me continued to separate

21:43

bad male behavior from good male art.

21:47

Even Julia Brian Wilson, who was

21:49

so angry at that Berkeley lecture about

21:52

Carl Andre, found herself a few

21:54

years later writing a chapter of

21:56

her dissertation about Carl's role

21:58

in the Artworkers Coalition and only

22:00

mentioning an A. Mendietta's death in

22:03

a footnote. I had to convince myself

22:05

and be convinced to grapple

22:08

with his work in the book, because I felt

22:10

for myself, as a young feminist, that

22:12

there was something troubling to me about

22:15

talking about his work divorced

22:17

from the fact of the marriage

22:20

and Mendietta's death. And I have a footnote.

22:22

I mean, and you know, I do acknowledge it that

22:24

it was a fact. Julia

22:30

had to write to Carl to get his permission

22:32

to access some research materials, and

22:34

that correspondence resulted in an

22:36

invitation to his apartment. When

22:39

she recounted the story, it was clear how

22:41

uncomfortable it made her. I

22:43

went to his apartment and met

22:46

him. I was really shocked

22:49

when he sent me his address and I saw that it was

22:51

the same building where he had lived

22:53

with on A Mendietta. And to me, I thought, gosh,

22:56

you know, sort of, no matter what happened

22:58

with that death, I would not want to

23:01

stay in the same place where

23:03

my partner had died. She

23:07

was in a deeply ambivalent place, somewhere

23:10

between grateful and spooked. If

23:12

you're working on a living artist, there is some

23:15

feeling like it is part of the research

23:17

process that you make contact with them. I

23:19

felt like I was checking a box. Why was just

23:23

spooked? I mean the word really is spooked. By

23:25

being there in that space where I knew

23:28

that on A Mendietta had died. She

23:30

tried not to seem too nosy, didn't

23:32

look around the apartment much. Instead,

23:35

she focused on the faces of Carl and

23:37

his fourth wife, Melissa. They

23:39

talked briefly, and then the three of them

23:42

went to dinner at a seafood restaurant. Yeah,

23:44

it was deeply weird. Then we marched down

23:46

to this fish restaurant and there

23:49

was really a prodigious amount of drinking,

23:52

not mine. And just noticing

23:54

that and knowing that the story of Carl

23:57

Andrean on A Mendietta was very much also

23:59

a story of alcohol, it

24:03

must have been weird. It's hard for me

24:05

to fathom even now that Carl's life

24:07

is so unchanged, He's

24:10

still in the same apartment, still

24:12

going out to dinner, and still drinking

24:14

too much. I don't want

24:16

to seem judge. I used to drink

24:18

very heavily back in the day. Every

24:21

art world event has an open bar. It's

24:24

almost like an occupational hazard. But

24:27

I know I would have watched Carl's alcohol consumption

24:30

like a hawk too, especially

24:32

given the huge role Booze played

24:34

in the story of Anna and Carl's relationship.

24:37

It's just one more thing in our culture that

24:40

we're not supposed to talk about. This

24:42

culture of discretion of what

24:45

can and cannot be said would

24:47

get played out in the courtroom, especially

24:50

since the strategy for Carl's defense

24:53

was to keep anyone from saying much

24:55

of anything. The

25:01

trial began in Earnest on a January

25:03

morning in nineteen eighty eight. In

25:06

some ways, a trial is similar to

25:08

a museum exhibition. Both

25:11

are places where a story is being told,

25:14

and the truth of that story matters. Experts

25:18

get to decide how the story is

25:20

told, lawyers, judges, curators,

25:24

and the rules about what evidence or

25:26

artwork can be used to tell those stories

25:29

are not always straightforward, transparent,

25:32

or fair. When

25:35

you walk into a museum, you only

25:37

see the artworks that were selected through a careful

25:40

process to tell a particular

25:42

story. There are always other

25:44

works that are left out that would tell

25:46

a different story. For instance,

25:49

artworks made by women of color. They

25:51

are rarely seen, no matter how

25:53

wonderful they might be in

25:55

a courtroom. Evidence is also

25:58

carefully selected before the big show the

26:01

trial, and even evidence

26:03

that everyone agrees is factual can

26:05

still get left out deemed

26:07

inadmissible for a variety of reasons.

26:11

When that happens, the judge

26:13

or jury are not allowed to consider

26:15

those facts when they formed their verdict.

26:18

This was the case in Anna's trial. A

26:21

lot of evidence got left out, which

26:23

means the story wasn't complete.

26:30

Natalia Delgado was the first witness

26:32

called by the prosecution. She had

26:34

flown to New York from her home in Chicago, bringing

26:36

along her six week old child, a

26:39

little girl she'd named after Anna, and

26:41

she was ready to testify about the last

26:43

phone call with Anna just hours before

26:46

her death, when Anna had told her about

26:48

her plan to expose Karl as a

26:50

cheater and file for divorce. But

26:53

I couldn't talk about any of that. Any

26:56

conversation about Anna's plans for divorce

26:58

was deemed hearsay and ruled inadmissible.

27:02

I couldn't say that I had

27:05

recommended to her that night that she confronted

27:07

Carl and tell him that she'd collected

27:10

evidence of his infidelity, that she'd

27:12

been photocopying records that would

27:14

establish his being with these

27:17

other women. I could not say that

27:19

she feared his anger, that she

27:21

said he would blow up when she said this to

27:24

him. I couldn't establish that

27:27

she wanted to get a divorce on the

27:29

grounds of infidelity, and that's why she was collected

27:31

this information as she feared his reaction.

27:34

None of that. I

27:37

could only say she was making plans for the future.

27:41

So what was on Anna's mind the night of

27:43

her death inadmissible.

27:46

And remember how Natalia was surprised

27:48

that Carl's lawyer was in the apartment

27:50

after Carl had been taken to the police station.

27:53

She was concerned about what would happen

27:56

to the secret copies of phone and credit

27:58

card bills that Anna had been collecting,

28:01

documents she thought proved Karl was

28:03

being unfaithful. Well, those

28:06

documents went missing. Even

28:08

though the apartment was a possible crime scene.

28:11

Even though Karl was at the station for questioning,

28:14

the cops let both Carl's lawyer

28:16

and maybe one other person

28:19

into the apartment. In an

28:21

interview after the trial, Robert

28:23

Katz explained what he thought happened

28:26

to the documents that Anna considered

28:28

evidence of Carl's infidelity.

28:32

While Carl Andre was being questioned

28:34

by the police before he was under

28:36

arrest, somebody entered the apartment

28:39

and removed what she called evidence.

28:42

It turned out this would be one of several

28:44

police errors that would dramatically

28:47

affect the evidence considered a trial.

28:50

But still there was other evidence

28:52

that pointed to murder. If Anna

28:54

had jumped out of the window of her own volition,

28:57

or even if she had merely closed or opened

29:00

the window, there would have been footprints

29:02

on the window sill. Here's Robert

29:05

Katz again. By the configuration

29:07

of the room would be almost impossible for her

29:10

to have committed suicide with asked somehow

29:12

getting onto that ledge, the window

29:14

sill came up Brahma's breast level, and

29:16

yet they found no footprints

29:19

on the window sill. But there

29:22

was a problem with this evidence too, another

29:25

police mistake. The police

29:28

had forgotten to put taking a

29:30

fingerprints in the search wire, and

29:33

so the police record showing that there were no

29:35

footprints on the window sill that was

29:38

also deemed inadmissible. The

29:41

most convincing pieces of evidence of murder

29:43

had been to borrow a phrase curated

29:46

out of the show. Ona's desire

29:48

for a divorce, Anna's evidence

29:50

of Carl's infidelity, and the proof

29:52

that Anna had not stood on the window

29:55

sill. These were all things the

29:57

judge was not allowed to consider. And

30:00

when the evidence that pointed to murder was

30:02

discussed at trial, then

30:04

the defense worked to sow the seeds

30:06

of doubt. There was the doorman

30:09

out on a coffee run who heard a woman yell

30:12

no, no, no, just before

30:14

Anna fl He was allowed

30:16

to testify, but they

30:18

discredit hit him by saying he had

30:21

had some prior psychological issues,

30:23

so he wasn't a good witness for purposes

30:26

of hearing her screams and

30:28

hearing the thud. It

30:32

turned out he had been treated several years

30:35

prior for auditory hallucinations.

30:37

His testimony was admissible, but

30:40

questionable. And what about

30:42

those scratches, particularly

30:44

the one on Carl's nose. The

30:47

scratch was either proof that Anna

30:49

and Carl had a physical altercation

30:51

that night, or the scratch was just

30:54

a coincidence. Everything

30:56

came down to when Carl

30:58

got the scratch. Carl

31:01

said the terrace door had blown into

31:03

his face about a week or so before and

31:06

scratched him, So the

31:08

question was, had anyone

31:10

actually seen a scratch

31:12

on Carl's nose before

31:15

the night Anna died. The

31:19

prosecutor had fewer witnesses in her

31:21

corner than she had hoped for. Several

31:24

people who had seen Carl in the days

31:26

leading up to Anna's death initially said

31:29

no, Carl had not had

31:31

any scratches, but one

31:33

by one they started doubting their own

31:36

memories. The people who had dinner

31:38

with him didn't want to testify

31:40

as to whether or not yet those deep scratches

31:43

on his face and arms.

31:46

She's referring to a couple who had dinner with

31:49

Carl and Anna a few days prior to Anna's

31:51

death. They told the detective

31:53

they had not noticed any scratches on Karl's

31:56

face, but later said they

31:58

couldn't remember. Another

32:00

witness showed up to take the stand, but then

32:03

suddenly also couldn't remember. Prosecutor

32:06

Elizabeth Letterer was watching her witnesses

32:08

fall away one by one. Nancy

32:11

Spirow, a witness who was waiting for her turn

32:13

to testify, remembered the prosecutor

32:16

growing frustrated as she tried to keep her

32:18

witnesses on the same page. Here's

32:21

what Nancy said, she

32:23

was really a little impatient with saying

32:26

that you know that you had

32:28

told me. I mean, I

32:30

gathered that she had said she hadn't

32:33

seen it, and now

32:35

she changed her story. In

32:37

the end, Letterer would only call Nancy

32:40

Spirow to testify about the scratch.

32:43

Nancy sat uncomfortably in the witness

32:45

chair as her friend Carl looked on. She

32:48

was emphatic there was no

32:51

scratch, the implication

32:53

being that it must have been Anna who

32:55

scratched him on the night of her death. Well,

32:58

I was trying to count trade and

33:01

to be as honest as I could, and

33:05

I was so rattled as it was. It

33:08

must have been so hard. She

33:10

and her husband had been friends with both Carl

33:12

and Anna. Carl

33:15

sat quietly listening to his

33:17

friend Nancy Sparrow testify against

33:19

him. Well, he certainly didn't look at

33:21

each other directly, but I was aware of his

33:23

presidency. Meanwhile,

33:26

there were two witnesses that said the scratch

33:28

had been there all along. Carl's

33:32

good friend Laurence Wiener, who had gone to Rikers

33:34

to bail him out, and a woman who worked

33:36

at Carl's gallery. Both

33:38

took the stand to say that they'd seen Carl

33:41

shortly before Anna's death, and that

33:43

he did indeed have something on his face,

33:46

maybe a scratch, maybe a pimple.

33:49

Not only did these two witnesses not

33:51

agree on what the mark was, they

33:54

also didn't agree on where that mark

33:57

was. Was it his nose or

33:59

the side of his face. Either

34:02

way, the defense addressed the evidence

34:04

by planting seeds of doubt about

34:07

it. For better or

34:09

worse, the rule of law is designed

34:11

to work in favor of the accused, but

34:14

this case wasn't only playing out in a courtroom.

34:17

This case was being discussed in every corner

34:19

of the art world, because layered

34:22

on top of the police gaffs, the suppressed

34:24

evidence, and the seeds of doubt, there

34:26

was a mixture of betrayal and disbelief

34:29

that Carl Andre, the metaphorical

34:31

father of minimalism, the ethical

34:33

Marxist, the intellectual, the

34:36

supporter of women's causes, could

34:38

do something so monstrous.

34:42

Even though Nancy Spirow was willing to testify

34:44

against Carl, you can hear how

34:46

ambivalent and confused her husband,

34:49

artistly On Galabi, is at the idea

34:52

that someone like Carl could do something

34:54

so horrible. He told Robert

34:56

Katz, there might be other things at stake

34:59

than I'm in punishment. You

35:01

don't want to see such a person

35:04

brought down, because

35:06

if that person who's brought down the

35:09

whole range of you're what you have thought

35:12

conceived, the alot is

35:15

tainted. So the best way to protect him

35:18

was to respect

35:21

as a wish for rural silence, and

35:24

also to take him at his word.

35:27

Right, How could Carl, who represents the purity

35:29

of the desart, how could he have done such

35:32

an act like them? Carol represents

35:34

something. I can't tell

35:36

you how important he was symbolically,

35:40

and that may be why Elizabeth Lederer

35:42

had such difficulty getting people to talk.

35:45

B Ruby Rich remembers how surprised she

35:47

was about all of it. The assistant

35:50

DA who was trying the case, said

35:52

to me that in her

35:54

career she had never encountered a wall

35:56

of silence like this one, except

36:00

in mafia cases. So

36:03

I think that the art world was

36:06

a closed world. I

36:08

certainly agree that the art world is a closed

36:11

world. We are a social formation

36:13

structured by deep friendships that mix

36:16

business with pleasure, love

36:18

with money, and perhaps

36:20

because the lines between personal

36:22

and public are so thin, it's

36:24

a world in which discretion is paramount.

36:28

But when does discretion become silence?

36:31

And what happens when people get fed

36:33

up with that silence. We'll

36:49

come back to the trial, but first

36:51

I'm going fast forward up to the almost

36:54

present, to a time when so many

36:56

women were about to take aim at the walls

36:59

of silence around them. The

37:01

me Too movement was about to explode,

37:03

and the air seemed filled with the tension

37:06

that comes from being fed up. Now,

37:09

when carl Andrea's work went on view, a

37:12

generation of artists who revered

37:14

Ana Mendieta was vocal about

37:16

their displeasure, and they showed up

37:19

to protest. They

37:26

painted their hands red, linked arms

37:29

and blocked the entrance of a museum in Germany.

37:32

Cannavanieta was a woman of color, a

37:34

refugee, an evidence following

37:36

her death points towards the domestic

37:38

violence there was ensu They dramatically

37:41

cried inside the galleries where Andrea's

37:44

sculptures were displayed. All

37:51

of this was happening as plans were being

37:54

made to bring carl Andrea's retrospective

37:56

to the museum in Los Angeles, where I

37:58

had landed my dream job of chief

38:01

curator. But as the exhibition

38:03

made its way to LA instead of thinking

38:05

about Carl, I found myself thinking

38:08

a lot more about Anna, And

38:10

the more I thought about Anna and her work, the

38:13

more uncomfortable I became thinking

38:15

about Carl and his work. I'd

38:18

had a serious change of heart. Like

38:21

the protesters, I also didn't

38:23

think we should be celebrating someone who

38:26

had been accused of murder. But

38:29

the reality was the ship had sailed.

38:31

There was no turning back. Still,

38:34

I felt like I had to do something. But

38:37

what? A few months before

38:40

the show, I invited a group of

38:42

women I admired, artists,

38:44

professors, curators to talk

38:46

it out. One of them was

38:49

an artist named Andrea Bowers. The

38:52

thing I remember about that meeting

38:56

is one

38:59

of the participation and saying that there

39:01

would be protests,

39:06

and then another participant saying there

39:08

will be blood. I do remember

39:11

that because right because

39:13

there had been this previous

39:15

protest where animal blood

39:18

had been thrown. Yeah.

39:20

I really felt in

39:23

a certain way it would require

39:29

you and others in

39:31

your position, as well as other

39:33

artists, to speak out publicly against

39:35

it. But I also

39:38

felt like you felt

39:44

like you would not have your job if you did

39:46

that. You were looking for a creative solution.

39:50

I didn't have the guts to step down at that point.

39:53

I also did not realize the

39:56

intensity of like

39:59

institutional kind of submission, Like

40:02

how can it be that there can be so many

40:04

curators in these institutions and

40:07

one curator can't say I'm uncomfortable

40:09

with that show. I really

40:11

believe there should be public

40:14

internal discourse.

40:17

I mean that's a democracy, right, Yeah,

40:22

this is a pretty common misconception.

40:24

An art museum is definitely not

40:27

a democracy. In fact,

40:30

they are the opposite of democracy. Like

40:32

most workplaces, they are a very highly

40:35

evolved hierarchy. The

40:37

reality was the show was going to go on, which

40:39

meant, pragmatically speaking, all

40:42

that could be done was some light window dressing.

40:45

We hosted a talk by a feminist art historian,

40:48

one of the very few who was willing to discuss

40:50

the accusations against Carl, the

40:53

very same person who had also been invited

40:55

to talk at DIA, But that was

40:57

it. On opening night,

41:00

felt vaguely nauseous. I couldn't

41:02

tell what I feared more that the protesters

41:04

would show up or that they wouldn't.

41:10

They showed A

41:12

group of women had lit candles and were handing

41:14

out small xeroxes with honest picture

41:17

on them. My wife brought

41:19

one home and propped it up on our kitchen counter.

41:22

I avoided their somber picket line. That

41:26

night was the one and only time I visited

41:28

the Carl Andrea exhibition. It

41:31

was a really sad night for me, and

41:34

the next morning, when I had my coffee

41:36

and looked it on his picture, I

41:38

just couldn't shake the feeling that I

41:40

wasn't down with business as usual anymore.

41:47

Next time, on Death of an Artist

41:50

it was totally blamed the victim, but with an extra

41:52

twist. They were trying to establish that

41:54

she killed herself, like this was some sort

41:57

of culminating art piece. Judges

41:59

tend to be more meticulous about what

42:01

a reasonable doubt is. This

42:04

is press play. I'm Malone brand. Let's talk now about

42:06

some bad news that's hit a couple of local museums.

42:11

Death of an Artist is a co production between

42:14

Pushkin Industries, Something Else and

42:16

Sony Music Entertainment. Written and

42:18

hosted by me Helen Mouldsworth. Executive

42:21

producers are Lizzie Jacobs, Tom Kinig,

42:24

Lietamlad, Jacob Weisberg and Lucas

42:26

Werner. Produced by Maria Luisa

42:28

Tucker, editing by Lizzie Jacobs.

42:30

Our managing producer is Jacob Smith.

42:33

Associate producers are pood Ru and

42:35

Eloise Linton. Additional production

42:38

helped by Tally Abacassas. Anamandieta's

42:40

quotes were read by Tanya burgera special

42:43

thanks to the New York Public Radio Archive,

42:45

engineered by Sam Baar, fact

42:48

checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado.

42:50

Our theme song is by Pooge Rue.

42:59

If you of this show, consider subscribing

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free and get exclusive bonus content.

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Look for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple

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