Small Archive of papers, including typed notes, correspondence, photos, press releases, programs and catalogs, fliers, film and art project treatments, and a mimeographed theatrical typescript, all pertaining to the works of fellow artists and friends of Castle's

CASTLE, Frederick Ted

About this Item

Approximately 20-25 pieces. Minor light wear, including occasional creasing from folding and occasional closed tears, but in general in very good condition or better. Frederick "Ted" Corson Castle (1938-2006) was an art critic and experimental novelist who documented New York's contemporary art scene in writings for *Artforum, Art In America, Art Monthly* and other journals, as well as in numerous exhibition catalog essays for artists such as Alice Neel, Carolee Schneeman, and Pat Steir. His first novel, *Anticipation* (New Paltz, NY: McPherson & Co., 1984), was described by his publisher as "an unholy marriage of Gertrude Stein and James Joyce." His next novel, *Gilbert Green: The Real Right Way to Dress for Spring* (New Paltz, NY: McPherson & Co., 1986), was a roman à clef based on Andy Warhol's Factory (Castle had first made Warhol's acquaintance in 1967, when Warhol rode as a passenger in the taxi Castle was then driving.) Castle attended Williams College and the Columbia School of Journalism, and worked briefly for *The New York Times Magazine,* before turning his attention to novel writing and art criticism. He was also a co-founder, with Argentine artist and filmmaker Leandro Katz (see below), of the Vanishing Rotating Triangle Press, which published experimental works by Kathy Acker, John Ashbery and Guy Debord, among others. (Johnson, Ken. "Frederick Ted Castle, 67, Art Critic, Dies," The New York Times, May 29, 2006.) Taken in its entirety, the archive charts a small but fascinating constellation of avant-garde artists, writers, galleries and arts organizations principally active from the 1960s to the 90s, in what many now consider a vanished New York. In three principle groupings, as follows: Harry Mathews: Typescript, 9 pgs., of Castle's notes on, and transcription of an interview with, Harry Mathews, in preparation for the essay "Lies Like Truth - The Art of Harry Mathews," published in the fall 1987 issue of the Review of Contemporary Fiction. In a manila folder with Castle's autograph title, "Harry Mathews," on the tab in black marker. Mathews, a New York-born writer and long-time resident of Paris, New York and Key West, is the leading American proponent of the French experimental literary society Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature). Founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais, Oulipo brought writers and mathematicians together in pursuit of innovative formalist techniques in order to generate vigorous new approaches to literature. Among its best-known practitioners were Georges Perec and Italo Calvino. Mathews's novels, especially his first three - The Conversions, Tlooth, and The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium - are playful, densely allusive, highly digressive, formally experimental, all in the Oulipo manner. Mathews co-edited, with Alistair Brotchie, the Oulipo Compendium, a primary source for Oulipo writings in English. He also co-founded and co-edited, with the poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and James Schuyler, the short-lived but influential literary journal Locus Solus. (He enjoyed fruitful literary friendships in particular with Perec and Ashbery.) Mathews was married twice, first to the artist Niki de Saint-Phalle, and after their divorce to the writer Marie Chaix. The fall 1987 issue of the Review of Contemporary Fiction (vol. VII, no. 3) was devoted to Mathews's work. The main repository for Mathews's papers is the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, at the University of Pennsylvania. It's unclear how well Castle and Mathews knew one another personally, though there is an obvious affinity between their work, and Mathews contributed a blurb to Castle's second novel, hailing it as a masterpiece. In any event, the typescript provides insight into the practices and habits of mind of both writers and into the contemporary literary zeitgeist. The typescript breaks down as follows: 4 pgs., sans-serif type, compri.

Seller Inventory # 411258

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Small Archive of papers, including typed notes, correspondence, photos, press releases, programs and catalogs, fliers, film and art project treatments, and a mimeographed theatrical typescript, all pertaining to the works of fellow artists and friends of Castle's
• Binding: Unbound
• Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art / Illustration