ABSTRACT
Julian Schnabel's paintings of the seventies employed the New Image format: on a monochrome field, a schematic image or two. Often, the image is of a torso in rough outline—whether flesh or statuary, it is impossible to tell. Nearly always, the waxy, perfected surface of the painting shows at least one deep gouge. In 1979 these canvases made a respectable appearance at the Mary Boone Gallery, which had recently opened at 420 Broadway. Castelli's SoHo was two flights up. Later that year, Boone showed Schnabel's The Death of Fashion (1978), an immense painting encrusted with shards of crockery. Over this field of broken plates and cups he painted a scrawny scimitar and a headless, armless torso.
