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Joshua Decter
Organizer and moderator

Is a New York-based critic, curator and art historian. Decter contributes regularly to Artforum and other publications. His recent exhibition, "Screen," proposed a rendezvous of painting, television and video, and he is currently organizing a show for The Center for Curatorial Studies Museum at Bard entitled, "a/drift: Scenes from the Penetrable Culture."

He teaches at The School of Visual Arts and New York University.

Introduction

Welcome to "Strange Days are Here: Painting into Media Culture toward Painting, and Beyond." I'll try to make your evening as entertaining and engaging as possible.

I'd first like to thank the panelists for kindly accepting my invitation to participate on "Strange Days are Here: Painting into Media Culture toward Painting, and Beyond."

I would also like to thank Jeanne Siegel and Gary Sherman of the School of Visual Art's art history department for sponsoring this evening's event. In addition, Tim Binkley, Chair of the MFA Computer Department at SVA.

Tonight's panel is the result of my desire to continue a number of ongoing, interrupted, and barely begun conversations.

This past Summer, driving with Lari in his car, he spoke of television -- I believe it was the Home Shopping Network -- as a kind of narrative embroidery, a quality that I relate to how depth is pushed to the surface of his information-rich paintings (a quality that I also associate with the "surface depth" of television); with David, whose interest in the question of video and media began many years ago as a curator, and who now is involved with the Internet and the Web; with Peter, whose eloquent and critical discussions of painting over the years have helped me understand my relationship to that practice; and Benjamin, whose judicious, cautious and now inventive involvement with the web has made me considerably less skeptical.