Artists Talk on Art

Artists Talk on Art

Artists Talk on Art is the art world’s longest running and most prolific aesthetic discussion series, having held over 1,000 events – mainly panels or dialogs – since its inception. Over nearly 50 years. ATOA has featured over 8,500 artists, art writers, critics, dealers, curators and other art world luminaries. And, it has recorded virtually all of them – in audio until 1990 and in video since then. 

Sheer was one of three co-founders of Artists Talk on Art in 1974, inspired by the Artists’ Club – sometimes known simply as ‘The Club’ -- of the 1950s and 60s, which was dominated by Abstract Expressionists. Sheer met his two fellow founders, Lori Antonacci, a filmmaker and writer and Robert Wiegand, a painter and video documentarian, at The Egg Store, a unique production and post-production facility in Tribeca, catering exclusively to the pioneers of video art. 

Sheer had originally arrived at The Egg Store in the late 1960s as a client, then became its manager. Soon he was serving Egg Store clients such as: Nam-June Paik, Bill Viola, Peter Campus, Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, Yoko Ono, Aldo Tambellini, Carolee Schneemann, Global Village, TVTV, Charlotte Moorman, The PBS Experimental TV Lab, Jonas Mekas, Chevy Chase and Mary Lucier, to name just a few.

After Sheer, Antonacci and Wiegand*, jointly founded and named ATOA, they set about assembling a board (originally called simply a steering committee). That committee included: Sheer, Weigand and Antonacci and publisher Cynthia Navaretta*, critic Irving Sandler*, artist Bruce Barton* and critic Corinne Robins. Sheer became the first President and later as the board came into being and expanded, its Chairman. (*Also had roles in The Club).

While The Club was almost exclusively male and heavily about Abstract Expressionism, ATOA’s founders and steering committee pledged to be much more inclusive of women diverse. They espoused cultural and aesthetic pluralism. 

The new series, which met on Friday evenings in SoHo, was weekly from mid-September through mid-April for many decades, much later experimenting with other nights. Currently the series operates on Mondays.

Among the many artists and others who have appeared at ATOA have been: Will Barnet, Robert Blackburn, Louise Bourgeois, Herman Cherry, Judy Chicago, Allen Coleman, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Arthur Danto, Robert DeNiro, Agnes Denes, Leon Golub, The Guerrilla Girls, Grace Hartigan, Wolf Kahn, Hilton Kramer, Ellen Koment, Lucy Lippard, Robert Longo, Alice Neel, Vernita Nemec, Robert Mapplethorpe, Knox Martin, Marisol, Ana Mendieta, Elizabeth Murray, Dennis Oppenheim, Pat Passlof, Judy Pfaff, Larry Poons, Milton Resnick, Larry Rivers, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Jerry Saltz, David Salle, Irving Sandler, Andres Serrano, Peter Schjeldahl, Miriam Shapiro, Nancy Spero, Pat Steir, Carolee Schneemann, Marcia C. Sheer, Kenneth Snelson, Calvin Tomkins, Lilly Wei, Hannah Wilke, Kehinde Wiley and Fred Wilson.

In 2016, ATOA’s historic archive of papers, photographs and over 900 recordings of panels and dialogs were acquired by the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C.

The ATOA presents speakers and topics from all art disciplines including painting, sculpture, printmaking, performance art, video and computer art on all issues ranging from aesthetics, cultural, politics and practical survival skills for artists.

See www.atoanyc.org