Philip Guston. Head – Double View. 1958. Ink on paper. The Museum of Modern Art. Purchase. © 2011 The Estate of Philip Guston

The 1958 Philip Guston drawing Head – Double View is currently on view in The Big Picture, the fourth-floor installment of MoMA’s Abstract Expressionist New York exhibition. One floor down, in the complementary show Ideas Not Theories: Artists and the Club, 1942-1962, the black-on-white composition appears again, this time on the cover of an album by the American composer Morton Feldman. Feldman—who was friends with many of the artists associated with the New York School, Guston in particular—featured the drawing on the jacket of his 1959 Columbia Masterworks release New Directions in Music 2. Read more

Larry Rivers. Sprintemps, from Stones. Print executed 1958. 1 from illustrated book with 13 lithographs, composition (irreg.). page: 19. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. E. Powis Jones. © 2011 Estate of Larry Rivers/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

As a writer, more specifically a poet, I like to turn to art as a source of inspiration. The relationship between the written and the visual presents itself best in the form of collaboration, where both mediums can share the same space. Collaborations between writers and artists can range from artist books and performances to publications and series of prints. The current Abstract Expressionist New York exhibition shines a light on one of my favorite poets and well-known collaborators: Frank O’Hara. Read more