January 29th: Remembering John McWhinnie (1968-2012)

JOHN MCWHINNIE

Andrew H. Walker/Getty Image

Movie Logic
by Erik La Prade

For John McWhinnie (1968–2012)

Narrative and plot don’t move
In the same time frame. Jump cuts
Cue up style and motive.

The director’s vision arcs
Through everything, apparent
When some coincidence or deliberate
Accident makes an exit or sparks

Disaster. Is it cinematic truth
Or our own suspension of disbelief
We’re watching? It doesn’t matter.
We sit here awaiting the inevitable.

From Erik La Prade's forthcoming poetry collection of the same title.

January 29, 2013, New York, NY -- John McWhinnie, rare-book expert and art dealer in New York, "champion of words and images on paper in an age of electronic reading" would be 45 today, had he not been killed in a snorkeling accident in the British Virgin Islands last year on January 6th.   Mr. McWhinnie who began selling rare books as a Boston College student was the director of John McWhinnie at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, a rare-book shop and gallery at 50 ½ East 64th Street in Manhattan. He met Mr. Horowitz at a book fair as a graduate student and subsequently managed Mr. Horowitz bookshop and gallery in South Hampton, Long Island.  The Manhattan store opened 2005.  As a bookseller, Mr. McWhinnie specialized in the 20th and 21st centuries, concentrating in particular on the Beats. As a gallerist, Mr. McWhinnie exhibited well-known contemporary artists like Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman, as well as up-and-coming artists. With Mr. Horowitz, Mr. McWhinnie also ran a small publishing imprint, JMc & GHB Editions, which produced artists’ books and exhibition catalogs. He is survived by his wife, Maria Beaulieu,  his sister, Lisa Paradis, and his  parents, John and Betty McWhinnie. [source: NYTimes]

The smell of the paper, the design of the cover, the tattered pages and convenient cocktail napkin employed as a bookmark, all experiences before the reading, remain the hallmarks of John, as presentable and gracious a fellow as ever walked Park Avenue.

-- Charlie Finch, ArtNet.com