We’ve had Plagens on the run since 1989. A painter himself–he has a show of his abstract works at Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York coming in December-Plagens was chairman of the art department at the “University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early ’80s. Then he moved to Manhattan and was freelancing for Artforum and Art in America when he caught NEWSWEEK’S eye. Like all of our critics, Plagens has always been encouraged to follow his instincts wherever they may take him–“My first assignment was ‘Go find something to review and review it’ “and his prose has always had a funny, irreverent, populist touch. If an artist takes himself too seriously, Plagens almost certainly will not. He has profiled embattled politicos (the NEA’s Jane Alexander, the Guggenheim’s Tom Krens), pondered the masters (Matisse, Cezanne, Vermeer) and decoded all manner of contemporary-art madness. “I’ve written about jewelry and artifacts from ancient Egypt,” he says, “and I’ve reviewed shows at this place called Exit Art, in SoHo, where everything’s weird and cutting-edge and made of junk.” We’d be hard pressed to think of a smarter, or more tireless, time traveler.
