Nancy Marmer is a writer, art critic and editor who lives in New York City. From 1979 through 1998, Marmer was an editor at

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

magazine—first as a senior and executive editor (1979-1982), then as managing editor and book review editor (1983-1997) and contributing editor (1998-2008). She was West Coast editor of

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

, Los Angeles Correspondent for

Art International ''Art International'' known as ''Art International Magazine'', was an art journal based in Switzerland and issued 10 times per year. James A. Fitzsimmons was the magazine's chief editor and publisher. History and profile ''Art International'' ma ...

, a founding editor of ''Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction'' and a managing editor of ''Faulkner Studies''. She has taught at the Mellon Seminar,

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, the Visual Arts Department of the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

, and the English Department of the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. Called one of "the earliest critics who attempted serious explorations of modern art in California" and a critic of Los Angeles avant-garde art, Marmer has written about numerous California artists, among them

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating severa ...

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, ''Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outside ...

, Ron Davis, Ed Moses, and Alexis Smith. She is author of "Pop Art in California," a survey of the movement on the West Coast. She has also written about the relationship between art and California politics, including "a detailed outline of the effects of Proposition 13 on the arts." Her art criticism and book reviews have been published in

Art News ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countri ...

New West New West Records is a record label based in Nashville, Tennessee, and Athens, Georgia. It had offices in Burbank, California, and Beverly Hills, California. The label was established in 1998 by Cameron Strang "for artists who perform real music ...

, the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

, and ''Art Press'' (France). Marmer has often written about French artists such as

Christian Boltanski Christian Liberté Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French conceptual style. Early life Boltanski wa ...

, and about the role of politics in French culture. In 1977, she covered the opening of France's Beaubourg Museum in the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, and has written articles about the role of the French ministry of culture and the French art world. Marmer is co-editor of an anthology of literary criticism, ''The Modern Critical Spectrum''. Marmer was married to the novelist

Gerald Jay Goldberg Gerald Jay Goldberg (December 30, 1929 - June 2, 2020) was an American author. He was a professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught English and American literature and Creative Writing. An acclaimed novelist, he ...

, a professor emeritus at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. She has one son, Rob Goldberg, a former film critic for the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

, who is a producer and writer of documentary films. She has received a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Fellowship in Art Criticism, a Samuel Kress Foundation Award in Art History, the

English Department Prize, and is a member of the Sigma chapter of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

. Marmer currently writes fiction. She has completed one novel and is at work on a second. Since 2008, she has had a blog at Exegette.blogspot.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marmer, Nancy Living people American art critics American magazine editors Women in publishing American women journalists American women critics Journalists from New York City Women magazine editors Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women