Cool Artists of the Day: Leon Golub & Nancy Spero

Coolest artists EVER, in fact. Nancy is now 81 and Leon died in 2004 at the age of 82. They were married for 54 years. Both of them stayed true to figurative art and, more importantly, their passion for progressive political engagement and social activism throughout their careers, which meant that they were both basically contrarian and unpopular for first 20-odd years of their careers as the art world embraced minimalism, abstraction, earth art, and pretty much every genre that rareified art and shunned poltics in keeping with the Modernist ethos (the feminist art movement was clearly heavily politicized but never based in traditional figurative painting, while pop art has been interpreted as political, most notably by Ken Silver, whose queer theory reading of Warhol in the Hand-Painted Pop catalogue is one of the most brilliant pieces of art criticism I have ever read). Thier work is some of the most fantastic and powerful stuff around, and although they stand alone wonderfully, I prefer to look at their work as a collaboration, the product of a life together. It's too simple to say that Nancy represents the female and Leon the male. They are both universal, compassionate, brilliant artists who demonstrate that art can be political and formally stunning at the same time.

A highlight of my charmed existence was meeting these two. I worked at the Whitney Museum bookstore and ticket booth for a couple of years, and virtually every celebrity you can name - actors, authors, artists, musicians - came in and bought tickets and/or books from me. It was certainly cool to see all these famous people (Harrison Ford is a dick and his children are filthy; Woody lets Soon-Yi do all the talking; Keanu Reeves is shockingly hot; Brad Pitt is shockingly tall; Gianni Versace was one of the coolest, most down to earth people ever; Denzel Washington triggered a mass abandoning of posts by all the female security guards and was totally charming; David Bowie had three credit cards declined but I called in sick that day and have never forgiven myself; Faye Dunaway and Sharon Stone are both crazier than bags of angel dust), but I was rarely over-excited by any of them and only once truly overwhelmed, and that was when Leon and Nancy came in. I was selling tickets and, all of a sudden, there they were, these two tiny smiling awesome people. I completely flipped and abanodoned my post, Denzel-style, rushing around the little booth-thing and accosting them. This was the only time I ever said anything to anyone about how much I loved them, and I really let it rip. They were gracious and friendly and just the coolest people ever. I cried when Leon died.