Organized by Lynn Gumpert, Ned Rifkin, and Marcia Tucker

"The New Museum's inaugural exhibition [at the New School], Early Work by Five Contemporary Artists, opened in November 1977. It was planned as the first in a series whose intention was to recoup our recent history, to discover and enjoy key works, which had not been seen by the public, by artists now in mid-career. These works had remained unknown for a variety of reasons, either because the artists were not well-known at the time, or because the work was considered to be outside the issues then under critical investigation, or because the artists themselves simply were not interested in showing them at that moment. In some cases the work had been seen, but by a limited audience. Since the way we see a work of art and what we think about it are determined in large part by the context in which it is shown, it seems instructive to present, ten years later, some of the pieces that were essential to the artists' subsequent developments."

-Early Work catalogue.

“This exhibition provided an opportunity to observe the genesis of ideas from which five artists’ more recent work evolved, and to examine their latest activity in light of the earlier pieces.”

-From The New Museum Annual Report, 1981-1984

‘Early Work, an exhibition of little-known pieces by five artists who have achieved prominence in the past deacade, is the second show of its kind to be presented at The New Museum; The first was the Museum’s inaugural exhibition in November 1977…

Included in the show are [Lynda] Benglis’ wax lozenges and poured latex floor pieces, examples of her early concern with the organic qualities of material and the incorporation of process into the finalized work.

Focusing on her immediate environment, [Joan] Brown’s paintings and sculpture form the late 1960s contain eccentrically depicted images of her home, children, pets and friends.
[Gary] Stephan’s early paintings were, in his own words, ‘an attempt to collapse the distance between the paint and the armature’—to create a piece in which the pain itself would be the painting’s support. He also states that ‘painting’s function is to make a kind of ecstatic space.’

[Lawrence] Weiner’s early site-specific pieces utilized ephemeral found materials, placed in inaccessible places. The work addresses issues of language, philosophy and theater as well as art.
Early Work demonstrates The New Museum’s belief in the importance of presenting recent art history to the public as a means of further understanding the art of today.”

-From The New Museum Press Release, March 15, 1982