Glenn D. Lowry

Glenn has been the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for many years now. I do not remember exactly, but more than 10 years.

I met him when he was the director and curator at the Museum in Mary & Williams, Williamsburg, in 1982. At that time, my studio in New York was already at 140 Thompson.

In the summer, he came to visit my stone - yard in Tuscany and selected Triangles to Infinity, to be installed outdoor, for the inauguration of the Museum in Williamsburg. He left that museum shortly after.

I always thought of him as a kind and decent human being.

In 1996, after the cancellation of my exhibition at Leo Castelli one month before its opening, I had a very painful time time. MOMA’s curator Rob Storr, known at that time as a terrible painter, was apparently more interested in the name of Leo than in my work. He then went on to write some very boring stuff. His horrible letters to me, were posted on the wall of my studio in New York, so that all visitors could read and know more about, the person responsible for certain Art choices of that time.

Because of this “incident”, I was very sick and dismayed to say the least, I had a severe attack of shingles. I decided to leave New York for my stone yard in Tuscany but went to see Glenn before leaving.

He seemed concerned about my pain, to cheer me up, he opened especially for me, the Brancusi exhibition, due to inaugurate the day after. He very generously allowed me to visit it, while a young man was cleaning and dusting around.

I will never forget the great experience and feeling, of Brancusi and I, alone in the silence of those rooms, and now that I read about Brancusi at the Tate, to travel afterwards to New York, the memory of that feeling has returned, and I am living it again.

Life is made of very few precious moments, thanks Glenn.

Carla  Lavatelli