William Stobb

I recently watched the documentary, Black White & Gray , about Sam Wagstaff, the New York curator, collector, and photographer who was Robert Mapplethorpe’s partner in a variety of ways.  It’s a really compelling study of a complex human being.  It's insightful, vivid and smart, and really honors Wagstaff's life and legacy without oversimplifying it.  It streams on Netflix.  In addition to all the ways that I really enjoyed the film and respect it as an excellent documentary profile, I was delighted and surprised to learn that Wagstaff had represented Michael Heizer during the (short?) phase of his life when he worked and made a splash on the east coast (later, Heizer would say, “I’d been to the east, and didn’t like what I saw.  It looked like it was degenerating.”).   Wagstaff put Heizer’s works in his shows, and set up a famous earthwork exhibition at the Detroit Art Institute, where Heizer was to drag a heavy mass across the lawn, ...