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4. Was my "ROLE" OVER AS AN AMERICAN ARTIST? There were, of course, few articles published in art magazines during the sixties about my contribution in "light" sculpture which were circulated negatively and painfully later. Dusseldorf and of more recently in New York. I could give approximated dates of such articles if asked. During the seventies two books were published on my work, one by Verlag Gerd Hatje in Stutgart [[Stuttgart]], Germany, and the other by [[strikethrough]] the late [[/strikethrough]] Harry Abrahms Publication Company. The scripts of these books were written by Mr. Sam Hunter and Mr. Pierre Restany. They related me, to whatever or whoever and included personal remarks about my "personality". For instance, to say it briefly, quoting from Mr. Sam Hunter's book, "Chryssa seems to thrive and depend upon the classical artist patron relationship and he refers to the Metternich circle, like a gossip columnist, which is none of his business, or is it? He also characterizes me as a "snob" and he makes further remarks. I would like to ask Mr. Hunter if his opinion is that I made my works to feet or to fit my patron art salons? I quote from his book, "Many American artists actually prefer not to meet their collectors, because they may be overly demanding intellectually flat, or otherwise tiresome." Now the very few collectors, that I had were, to my opinion, very knowledgeable about art, and sincere. Of course it is a great pity that I lost clients and the party "Milieu" of the salons by not having continued my newspaper movie advertisements to satisfy the "Stars"! Mr. Sam Hunger also refers, "to my pioneering experiment in new mode of Luminest sculpture", and a lot of such crap and also mentions names such as of the French Klein or Thomas Wilfred or Maholy Nagy and he mentions Cinetics." He must be teasing me or his own eyes, or those of his readers. I believe that the subject matter of my work alone is beyond European derivatism. My work derives directly from metal and neon letter signs or arrows from Times Square. As for his Cinetic mentionings, my answer to him is that Times Square has its commercial signs, also lights on and off. Those are only a few of the points that I want to make about his writings on my work.
Transcription Notes:
^ removed per Smithsonian instructions