I'm Waiting For the Man
Just not this man
I was reading an article from Culturemap this morning when I was stopped in my tracks by this sentence: “It was 2011 when the Menil Collection hosted the first-ever solo U.S. showing of works by artist Walter De Maria, a member of the Velvet Underground who worked across sculpture, film, and music.” Walter de Maria was in the Velvet Underground? As someone who has been a fan of the band since 1980 or so, this was news to me. I had to investigate further. I found this:
He was the drummer in the Primitives, the group formed by Lou Reed and John Cale with another guy who wouldn’t go on to the Velvets, Tony Conrad. The band was only around for about two or three months in late 1964 and early 1965, and only Reed appears on the sole Primitives single, “The Ostrich”/“Sneaky Pete,” recorded before the other musicians were recruited.
--Richie Unterberger, April 24, 2017
This Culturemap article was to preview a solo Walter de Maria show at the Menil which opens in October. It will be called Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work. This will be De Maria’s second solo show at the Menil. He is, of course, best known for The Lightning Field, an earth art installation in New Mexico.
I saw his first solo exhibit at the Menil and wasn’t impressed. That year I polled a bunch of art figures on their favorite and least favorite art shows, and Trilogies was selected as one of the worst by an artist friend who described it as, “a 25 cent idea with a million dollar budget.”
Say what you will about Walter de Maria—he was no Moe Tucker.
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Saying he played with The Velvet Underground is a bit of a stretch. Although my strongest laugh was the auto-correct misspelling of Menil Director Rebecca Rabinow's name to Rebecca Rainbow. The car guy in me winced at de Maria's soiling of three shoebox Chevys. "25 cent idea" indeed.