Teacher and Two Students - at Printworks Gallery

James Valerio

 

 

Mark Bowers

 

 

 

Maria Tomasula

 

 

 

From Kerry James Marshall on down, many of the city’s best known artists have been educators, but I can’t remember ever seeing a teacher/student exhibition outside an art school’s own gallery. Only in the strongly traditional arts, like Classical Realism, are lineages still held in high esteem. So this exhibition of James Valerio with two of his former students, Maria Tomasula and Mark Bowers, is an unusual event – but then, James Valerio is quite an unusual artist. Many artists meticulously copy photographs – but Valerio can infuse his interpretation with a formal idealism and tension that reaches as deep into minutiae as the eye can see. And though his subject matter is secular, his work feels Christian as it proclaims the special glory, mystery, and destiny of human life. The two monumental graphite portraits in this show radiate the intensity of a spiritual quest. Their subjects are unknown and may not even be Christian, but “There is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11.) Valerio’s close-up view of refuse, “Mud”, was far less inspiring as shown in the gallery, beneath reflective glass, Online however, I was better able to feel depth in the shallow spaces—and then eventually discover the human face hiding in plain sight. “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19)

Both of Valerio’s former students, now with art and teaching careers of their own, also show highly detailed graphite drawings in this exhibit. But that is all they have in common with their teacher. Bowers creates dream-like views of Midwestern landscapes where nothing feels alive or natural. The circular edges confirm them as inner visions rather than windows on the world. The sky is ominous; the atmosphere dark and heavy; the foreground collapses into background. These are anxious nightmares. Tomasula draws still-life where the real subject always seems to be her own body. Because she is an artist, there is often an emphasis on the hands –up to five pair. Because she is a woman in a patriarchal society, her torso is conventionally presented as either a luxuriant flower or a gravid fruit. She feels distant from all of these roles –as if they chose her rather than the other way around. So the self she portrays is more like a dessicated biological specimen than a living human being.

It’s admirable that these students have taken what they wanted from a teacher, and then followed their own path. Their work feels more personal and especially relevant to the anxieties of their generation. But I do find the teacher’s work far more enjoyable, encouraging,and even amazing. I could not believe that the glowing highlights in his portraits were not achieved without a white crayon – but the artist has confirmed that he only used black graphite. The areas of intense brightness are just unmarked white paper And it’s always surprising to find a living figurative artist who presents a spirituality that is not only secular, but also unsentimental and non commercial. Though not as much fun as the leading Imagists, Bowers and Tomasula are firmly within the surrealist mainstream of post-war Chicago art. Valerio is closer to the naturalism, precision, and humanism of the Renaissance - which might even be re-born again someday.

James Valerio

This is a Pipe - at Shane Campbell Gallery

Sayre Gomez "Behind Door #3"

Although subtitled “Realism and the Found Object,” only three of the eighteen artists in this exhibit manipulate ready-made objects rather than fabricate new ones. Skillful craft and design is evident throughout, but beauty is hard to find, which is surprising if you have ever seen this gallery’s stunning exhibitions of abstract painting.

Apparently, these artists calculated that intense visuality would just distract the viewer from whatever ideas they were trying to share, especially in Matt Johnson’s ”Pipe en Pain,” the piece that inspired the title of the exhibit itself. Going beyond Rene Magritte’s iconic “This is Not a Pipe,” Johnson has painted and carved a block of wood to resemble a loaf of bread. A hole has been drilled longitudinally through the center. Marks at one end suggest that it has been smoked like a pipe. Or, perhaps not. Certainly art museums would not allow it to be handled that way since “works of art” must be handled with great care. With so much to think about, who really cares how good it looks? And how good could a wooden loaf look anyway? But how new and important are these ideas? Isn’t this just like a one-liner on Twitter? You won’t get the joke if you don’t follow art history, so those who laugh may recognize themselves as members of an educated elite. That could be the primary appeal of conceptual art when it’s nothing more than the proliferation and monetization of academic correctness.

Nor is there much new or provocative about the other ideas presented in this show. The porous boundary between art, décor and utility? Critiques of our networked, commodity-centric culture? The contradiction between a culture of abundance and the destruction of basic resources? The fraught relationship between artist, work and market? We may agree, but we’ve heard it all before. The one concept that seemed fresh was suggested by a pair of trompe l’oeil glass doors painted by Sayre Gomez. They were too grimy to see through clearly, but they promised an escape from the sterile purity of the contemporary art gallery and an entrance into a lush, imaginative and possibly Romantic landscape. If only that were not just an illusion.

Most disappointing are those pieces that might have delivered their message more effectively had their visuality been more exceptional. Mika Horibuchi has painted traditional watercolors of conventional floral and landscape subjects. Despite appearances, however, they were actually rendered in oil paint. That imitation of technique, and consequent disruption of expectation, seems to be the subject that most concerns her. But wouldn’t such mimicry have been more memorable had the results been more than just pleasant? Jonas Wood also offers something like traditional representation as he paints potted plants. He has also painted an image on each flower pot, as a painting-within-a-painting. His purpose may be to disorient and examine the mind as it reads pictorial space. But again, wouldn’t that exercise be more revealing if the image-making were more than just competent?

Some of the most beautiful and unusual paintings now made emphasize mimesis, but they are as categorically absent from this exhibit as they are from museums of contemporary art. To find them, you will have to step outside an academic world more concerned with the mind as it sees rather than a reality to be seen. (Chris Miller)

------------------------------ the following was not included in the published review---------

Both of Dan Herschlein’s sculptural tableaus could not be any more depressing unless they were removed from the clean, bright art gallery and placed in a dark, damp basement. There, they might more powerfully deliver the despair of young men with no job, no romance, no friends, and no future.

The drawings of Tony Lewis are just as depressing though not as dramatic. Possibly he is still grieving that Bill Watterson stopped drawing “Calvin and Hobbes” over twenty years ago. Or perhaps he realizes that his "inner Calvin" is no longer cute and whimsical in his isolation from the adult world. Though a recognizable sketch of Calvin appears in each piece, all the cartoon panels have been whited out with correction fluid, transforming one set into sheets of toilet paper for Calvin to wipe his ass. Why not just crumple it up and toss it in a toilet ?

I am eager to share someone's despair, boredom, or frustration --if it has been expressed through a sensitive and powerful visual design. (example: "The Scream", or Milton Resnick)

That's the sort of thing that used to be identified as "art". But after five decades of academic and commercial assault, that distinction in more honored in the breach than in the observance. Tony Lewis calls his pieces "poems", but can he distinguish between a poem and a joke ?

All that distinguishes these pieces is where they are on display.

Nina Chanel Abney at Chicago Cultural Center

A review of Nina Chanel Abney : Royal Flush - at the Chicago Cultural Center

Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982) has been recognized for art about racial identity ever since she received her MFA. The only African American in her graduating class at Parsons, she painted a class portrait that reversed  black and white – depicting herself as a dizzy blond holding an assault rifle, and everyone else as a person of color wearing an orange prison jumpsuit . “Class of 2007” soon entered the Rubell Family Collection, one of the world’s largest privately owned and publically accessible collections of contemporary art. It did not travel to this show, but many of  her subsequent paintings have continued to offer energized cartoonish humor on the surface and racial violence not far beneath. And judging by the collectors and museums listed on the labels, most of it has met with similar success.


Abney can demonstrate a dynamic sense of design, an exciting feel for color, and a fluency with the linear contours of the human figure. As shown in her online videos, she also has a remarkable ability to compose large, wall size paintings on-the-fly without any kind of working sketch or plan. She just tapes up the surface and reaches for the cans of spray paint. As this ten-year retrospective reveals, however, she has not always worked this way. Her earlier work demonstrated complex line drawing and brush work. Then she switched to larger areas of flat color in acrylics. Then she began to use spray paint with tape and stencils. Most recently her paintings have begun as polychrome prints that were designed on a computer. Some of her latest work, like the monumental four panels called “Catfish”, is still quite dynamic overall. But as she stuffs the smaller areas with all the circles, triangles, and generic symbols that characterize her style, they begin to feel as busy and contrived as the designs on playing cards or currency. They reflect the reality of investment grade art. She’s not just making art -- she’s also making money.


In interviews, Abney has often asserted that she wants her work to be open to multiple interpretations. Indeed, some pieces, like “Double Click” (2012) appear to be intentionally confusing – with an assortment of numbers, faces, text, and amorphous shapes that appears to express some kind of puzzling dismay. Other pieces, like “Money Tree” (2008) clearly have a specific personal meaning.  It includes a self portrait front and center. But only the artist knows who are represented by the disembodied faces above and beside it. In some pieces, an intended meaning, even if conflicted, seems more clear. “Catfish”, for example, is a depiction of beautiful young female bodies. The voluptuous contours echo the Arcadian fantasies of Matisse, while heavy black X's over the genitals assert a prudish reaction. “Pool Party” (2016) depicts bi-racial, male couples playing chicken fight in a suburban swimming pool. It seems to say this game is sexy and fun – but also silly and childish. Abney is rather ambivalent about sexuality - possibly she comes from a devout religious background.


One piece, however, “FUCK T-E –OP” (2014) has a meaning that is both clear and straightforward. It expresses outrage over then recent events, like the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri where a black teenager was shot and killed by a policeman. There’s no ambivalence here – the young black men with crossed out gentle faces are innocent victims, and the artist blames law enforcement itself, not just one errant policemen. But as she steps up to take a stand, the viewer may now question her wisdom. Doesn’t this successful artist and her wealthy collectors need policemen more anyone else? Doesn’t this attitude encourage potential victims of police brutality to carry guns and shoot first – as a career criminal did recently on the streets of downtown Chicago? Doesn’t it undermine whatever moral authority her presentation of racial tension may have claimed? Like tabloid media, she flirts with controversy but does not enlighten it. Like commercial graphics, the visuality of her work demands attention but does not satisfy it.   Like contemporary academic artists, her semiotics destabilize rather than construct a web of meaning.   She's got an exciting, defiant attitude, but is not building a positive African-American identity as Romare Bearden and Kerry James Marshall have done. She quickly became a successful gallery artist.  But beneath the virtuosic surfaces of her work, it feels like her mind is still in graduate school..

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Money Tree, 2008

 

Double Click, 2012

Pool Party at Rockingham #2, 2016

 

Catfish, 2017

 

FUCK T*E *OP, 2014

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B. David Zarley's review presents the show as an exciting romp through our crazy, cruel national consciousness.   Which is not a bad way to think about these paintings  --- though I don't feel they "contain all of the dramatic grandeur and import—accrued, like a patina, over centuries of art historical hagiography and hegemony—of the figurative works which are fêted dutifully in Paris and London "    .. and I would not say that the dramatic grandeur and import of a celebrated painting like Delacroix's "Death of Sardanapalus" (another colorful romp through crazy times)  is the result of historical hagiography.  It was there when the paint was still wet.

There is no mention of racial tension or identity - American life is just high-volume madness.

And now that we have a twitter-ranting game show host as President -- it's hard to argue with Zarley's critique.

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Lori Waxman's review in the Chicago Tribune writes about the show much as I did -- noting the history of the artist and the development of her style from painterly to digitalized.  She comes close to aesthetic critique when she  tells us that "some changes succeed more than others" - though she won't say which is which. And she comes close to moral critique by writing that some paintings call to mind "the strange awfulness of being alive now" - but unless they offer some better understanding of it, how is that different from the daily barrage of headline news ?

In-Scription at Zolla Lieberman

If these five recent graduates of the MFA program at S.A.I.C. are representative of their generation, it looks like Millennial artists born in the 1990’s are conservative in a variety of ways. All five are painters who accept the convention of the flat, rectangular support. The canvas has not been punctured, draped, folded, or stretched into an unusual shape - and it is covered with paint rather than a collage of tchotchkes and knickknacks None of them challenge the viewer’s patience with repetitive, tedious banality and none of them take chances by pouring or dripping paint across the surface. All of them exhibit tight control over what they are doing. Perhaps too tight. All five are pulling attention into themselves - so their paintings point directly at their own anxious hearts. There’s no idealism here; no thrilling exploration of form , the natural world, or human history. There’s no reliance or innovation on art theory. There’s no assertion of identity regarding ethnicity or gender or sexual preference These paintings are all about young artists working hard to make a place for themselves in the world. They have a tough road ahead and they know it. All of this work is smart, well crafted, and full of their inner strength. But it’s not especially enjoyable to look at.


The exception would be the impasto monochromes of Blake Asseby. You might even call them relief sculpture since their hectic, inscribed surfaces resemble slabs of clay marked up by ceramicists. They bear the traces of interacting patterns that are suggestive but ultimately indecipherable. Like free jazz, the effect of all this chaos on me is quite relaxing. Someone else has done all the work of being nervous, so all I have to do is lay back and enjoy how it all seems to all fit together.

The other artists have made more ambitious work: more size, more contrasts, more colors, more ideas. Elaine Rubenoff may be the most conservative: she paints florals. On the scale of a computer screen, her bouquets are quite attractive and suggest as much mystery and sensuality as the surprisingly traditional florals shown last year by Jennifer Packer at the Renaissance Society. But the piece in this show is monumental in scale and far more threatening than inviting. Maura O’Brien is perhaps even more traditional as she reprises the angst ridden world of abstract expressionism from the mid-twentieth century. I feel the energy and the struggle - but not yet the surprising beauty. The small color pencil drawings by Heesu Jeon have got that kind of beauty though it’s challenged by the wacky, circular figuration of Manga comic books. That beauty disappears, however, in the single, larger oil painting of his on display.

Herman Aguirre is the most ambitious, and apparently the most currently successful artist in the show. One of his portraits caught my eye at last year's Art Expo. It had both gravitas and beauty – a rare combination in contemporary art. His two pieces in this show are less impressive. There’s a large , lugubrious floral that seems to belong in an Ivan Albright funeral home. And there’s a dark, heavy multi-figure work that feels like the muddy aftermath of a deadly tsunami. The artist is horrified by our world - yet still, careful attention has been paid to size, movement, and pattern.

Overall, this show of five young artists is more promising than any other MFA show I’ve seen.  Possibly the gallerist who selected them saw it as a good business opportunity - but it's also a generous contribution to the artworld. At least, that's how it appears to me.

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Here is Alan Pocaro's review of the show

Amateur Artist Poses as Art Critic

Over five hundred of my reviews have been published by New City in the first ten years of my career as an art critic. The feedback below, however, is the first I’ve ever received from someone not personally involved with a show under review. It’s anonymous and belligerent, but at least it opens a discussion about art criticism and who may, or may not, be qualified to write it.

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Amateur Artist Chris Miller Poses as "Art Critic" for New City. New City's audience deserves to know the credentials of “Art Critic” Chris Miller. It’s a story not unlike Steve Bannon. Miller, a music retailer who began his writing career as a blogger who drove from the suburbs to the big city to experience the art scene and then blogged stories of his experience. He gained access to a platform and uses that bully pulpit to spread unfair and ill informed information. Miller is not concerned with the effect he has on accomplished artist long careers simple because he does not understand the work.   With the abundant art community and a plethora of qualified art writers in Chicago, it’s sad that New City has chosen a untalented artist wannabe as an Art Critic to write for the “culture and arts” publication. But it’s hard to employ qualified writers at $15.00 a story.   see attached photos of Miller’s work.



 
Your pitch is accepted - if not by New City, at least by me
in my blog of unpublished New City Art Reviews.
You won't get paid the $15, but everyone who cares
about the subject matter will eventually get around to
reading your opinions. And I would like to read why
you think my art is so bad. Hopefully you will have
more to discuss than credentials.

[Postscript from seven years later - right after Trump’s second election.  David Brooks wrote about The Moral Challenge of Trumpism. in the New York Times.  As indicated by the above reference to Steve Bannon, Trump's revolution was much on the mind of my anonymous correspondent. (he was writing in December, 2017).  Brooks posits a clash between  institutionalists like himself versus the anti-institutional value system of MAGA et al.

Do I wish to destroy the institutions of the artworld (schools, museums, etc) ?  Not really.  May they live long and prosper. But may they also listen to those who do not share their allegiance to the anti-aesthetic or nihilistic art theorisms that have been trending for more than half a century.  Eventually they will have to  do a better job of accommodating the positive and the negative :  art and anti-art.   To help them, there are currently many who better read, more widely experienced, sensitive, and  astute than I.  If you, dear reader, know of any - please send me their names! ]

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Hey, don't give up on me here!  You have expressed a valid concern: what are the qualifications for writing art criticism?  Now it's time for you to continue the conversation.  Requiring that a critic be a good, professional artist would disqualify most of the iconic names in art criticism from John Ruskin to Clive Bell to Clement Greenberg to Jerry Saltz. That's OK with me --  perhaps their reputations are undeserved.  But to make your case, you might at least demonstrate the inadequacy of a specific art review that they, or I, have written.

Or... maybe you're not really interested
in the qualifications of an art critic.  Are you an artist who feels poorly served by one
of my reviews?

I better respond before I get another email from you. I guess spoiled husbands have a lot of time on their hands unlike the artist you review whose livelihoods are derived through art. Something you need to understand...this is not a conversation, it’s a one sided narrative...like a published art review. Don’t worry about the $15, however I have failed to find the pitch on your blog, therefore I guess your honesty is in question too. It’s understandable that it would never be published by New City so you’ll have to look for it somewhere else.   As to why I think your art is bad, all you have to do is go to a high school art class and find that answer. But I’d be interested in seeing an artist CV/Resume if you think you are a professional artist. I realize you don’t like discussing credentials given you did not defend or add to your “art critic” farce. Chris, you are no John Ruskin, you are no Clive Bell, you are no Clement Greenberg, and you are no Jerry Saltz and the thought that you think you are in this club is laughable. If you think art reviews are accurate and unquestionable you should really read some more about Art History. You’ve managed to worm your way into the Chicago art scene and you must enjoy that press pass. It’s okay Chris, there are plenty of frauds in the art world, the problem with that is you will always have the fear of being exposed for being a hack.   Oh, and your guess is wrong I am not an artist who has been "poorly served by one of your reviews".  I am however someone who earns my living in art world and I'm fed up with hacks who muddy those waters. I will defend artist until my last breathe, not tear them down.  

My mistake.   I was  thinking of your pitch as a
proposal for a story, not the story itself.
 I incorrectly assumed that you were planning to
write a more thorough treatment of the
subject. I will go ahead and publish the
"pitch" that you sent me, as soon as I can
confirm your address.

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In the above dialog, one of my readers asked who has the right  to criticize the work of a professional artist.  He asserted that I don't qualify because I'm only an amateur, and provided examples (shown above)  to demonstrate that I am a poor one at that.  (they come from my works in progress blog   and  my drawing blog  )

I  replied that most, if not all, of the best known art critics throughout history have not been professional artists -- to which he replied my writing could hardly be compared to theirs.

Since this reader considered his judgments of both art and criticism to be too obvious to require explanation, he did not offer any -  so our conversation has ended.  We still don't know about whom I "spread unfair and ill informed information", so no attempt can be made to rectify the matter.

It wasn't much of a conversation - but at least it was something.

If this reader, who wishes to remain anonymous,  ever gets around to explaining himself, I will append it to this post - and will do the same with responses sent by anyone else.

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Regarding credentials in the arts, they cannot make a good painting look any worse -- or make a bad one look any better. And looking for visual quality is what I do first - before thinking about who made it and why.  Most other art critics do not  share that priority.

Likewise, for me,  the credentials of an art critic have no effect on the merit of what that critic has written. Obviously, the anonymous reader quoted above would strongly disagree.

I want art criticism that relates art to life - so the more it reflects a passion and broad experience with both, the better.  And I consider it provisional -- i.e. not so much a final judgment as one voice within a never ending discussion.  Which is why I like to respond to art criticism written by others -- and invite others respond to mine.

Participants often feel that personal authority is at stake,  so discussions about art often descend into personal attack.  Especially in the anonymous world of the internet, where a troll seems to hide beneath every bridge.   But we can all do better - can't we?

Unlike most art criticism, but similar to most film criticism, the question of "is this art work worth viewing ?"  always lurks in the background of my writing - and evidence of the artist's success, hard work, erudition, reputation, and sincerity will not drive it away. No one is qualified to render a final judgment - but each of us has to decide where to allocate our own time and attention.  Each of us has to have our own hopes and dreams.

My approach fits much better into the American artworld of sixty-five years ago -- back when a leading artist like Ben Shahn might write:  "Form is the visible shape of content".  If you are searching for content, take a look at the art.

 In the artworld of today, a much greater emphasis is placed on context as validated by institutions and those they employ.  Which might explain the above job-holder's resentment and anger.

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Here are my priorities in art criticism:

1. Does it point to something worth striving for? (not necessarily by me). Because that is why I come to art.

2. What kind of human condition or life issue does it seem to represent? - because that’s the  most  engaging topic for discussion

3. How does it relate to and compare with art history? - because I find this question unavoidable.

4. How does it relate to what has been written  by the artist or others? - because I am fascinated by opinions other than my own.

My art criticism is based upon personal reaction and reflection - not because I claim that mine is authoritative -- but because that’s the kind of art writing that I want to read - and I don’t want to be told what I should be thinking. Often politically correct, that kind of criticism is tedious, pretentious, and useless. As well as ubiquitous. It's my hope that eventually other art writers will share the above priorities. Like myself, however, they will probably also have to come from outside the worlds of journalism, universities, or investment grade art galleries. 

 

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Susan Snodgrass, a prolific local writer,  has provided a job description  for art critics that is much more prevalent in today's artworld:

Artists are creative thinkers who challenge, expand, educate, disrupt, and revision the world in ways that others cannot. The task of the critic is not dissimilar to that of the artist. Our charge is to use the power of words to elicit, extend and mediate the dialogue, to inform and educate, to re/frame the view, to challenge the status quo. The resolve of art and artists will be tested once again with the imminent return of the culture wars reignited by Trump. Now is the time for critics to take back the discursive function of public space and re-energize the critical apparatus of alternative media and the art press. Above all, our primary mandate is to uphold the rights to free expression and free speech, including our own.

If this paragraph began with the word “politicized”, I could hardly disagree.  Politicized art promulgates one side in a conflict - but I  think of art as more like a harmonization of the human condition -- which is psychological, social, and environmental all at once.  The more stressed  the conflicts may be -- the more useful and amazing their resolution can feel.  Politicized art calls for a politicized criticism that will "elicit, extend, and mediate the dialogue" that it has begun.

But the kind of art that interests me does not  so much initiate a dialogue as satisfy a yearning -- and the job of the critic is to report on its satisfaction.

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A very different task for art criticism was presented by Edmund Burke Feldman in a chapter entitled "The Theory of Art Criticism" in "Varieties of Visual  Experience", a textbook  in American universities from 1967 through it's final edition published in 1992.  One might notice that its original title was "Art as Image and Idea" -- and then the word "art" was removed from the title in an academic world that was  beginning to prefer "visual studies".  (though one might notice that no chapters are devoted to the biophysics of vision or looking at natural phenomena)

"The chief goal of art  criticism is understanding.  We want to find a way of looking at art objects which yield the maximum of knowledge about their meanings and merits.  Works of art yield information to the trained  viewer, but we are not interested in information for its own sake.  For the purposes of criticism, we want to know how information about a work is related to its excellence.  For this reason, archaeological, historical, or literary data about works of art may be fascinating but not necessarily useful in art  criticism. In short, we want to understand the causes in the work of the effect it has upon us"

To "yield the  maximum of knowledge" introduces a notion of quantification which I do not believe applies to the kind of knowledge involved. To attempt to "understand the causes in the work of the effect it has upon us" undermines that which makes things qualify for study as art: their inner unity.

I  fear that like all textbooks, this volume primarily serves an institutional need to present a subject in a non-controversial way  to young people who are mostly interested in  graduating. 

However ---- he does elevate the importance of "excellence" while diminishing the importance of "archaeological, historical, or literary data".  This hierarchy would probably not be found in the textbooks of today.  Connoisseur-ship is long gone from the humanities - but still quite important to anyone, including myself,  who seek and are grateful for excellence in things.

He also lists the four kinds of art criticism as:  Journalistic, Pedagogical, Scholarly, and Popular.  Nothing that I have written  fits into any of these categories.

Perhaps in our new age of internet self publishing, a fifth category will receive more recognition: Amateur - not as in half-assed - but as in done for no reason other than love - an all consuming love.

And so we return to the title of this post

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Lori Waxman  shared her thoughts about art criticism in The Creative Independent  , a website sponsored by Kickstarter.  She has been the principal free-lance art critic at the Chicago Tribune since 2014.

Critics are not commentators. Critics are not influencers. Critics are experts in a particular discipline that are able to articulate their opinions about what they encounter in that field, while also providing immense amounts of context and other sorts of arguments to back up their opinions.

This statement does not identify Waxman as a professional journalist, but she does so later in the interview.  She likes subscription newspapers - she does not like the  free-for-all,  un-edited, self-published  internet. Art critics are not opinionated bloggers like myself - they are professional  journalists, like herself,  whose expertise is art - so they can provide “immense amounts of context” to  substantiate whatever opinions they offer.  I question whether expertise in the arts can be validated unless it is financial (how much will it sell for?) or institutional (where has it been exhibited and discussed?). Those criteria do not interest me -- though I realize that hardly any recognized “experts” would take my side. Some might agree, however, that what's important about context is not the "immense amounts" of quantity - but rather some notion of quality. Or, at least I hope so.

I write about a fairly elite subject, which is contemporary visual art, and I write about it in a general interest publication. So I also have to provide whatever is necessary for your average reader to understand what the hell I’m talking about. Just at the level of, “What is this art? Why does it matter? How does it fit into the grander scheme of things?” Influencers and lay commentators do not have that responsibility.

Even if there is something about a piece that compels such questions, there is no correct answer to them. Personal meaning is the most important because that’s how artworks come to life in each of our lives. Driven by how the work has affected us, we’re all alone on that search.  It’s the job of the art critic to stimulate thought and experience by sharing feelings, observations, and references - though that’s the job of any interlocutor in a good conversation.

The responsibility of a journalist is - or used to be - to aim at accuracy and objectivity. Objectivity is a killer, isn’t it? Apparently it’s considered impossible if not immoral in our current election cycle.  Is it really any more attainable in the discussion of art? So the only serious responsibility left for the professional arts journalist is to give the editors what they want. Which would make the “Influencers and lay commentators” somewhat more sincere - for whatever that is worth

To be a critic is a very particular vocation. It’s to know your field inside and out. It’s to know what happened before, what’s happening now. To know why something is important beyond just your particular interest in it is to be able to defend all of that contextually and historically. And it’s also the ability be a fucking good writer!

"To know why something is important beyond just your particular interest in it” is to speculate on the relative status of the opinions of others.  It contributes nothing to the discourses involved. That’s not art criticism - it’s social journalism.

And to know this entire “field inside and out” is impossible -  even if that only refers to the academic field in which she has taught. The world of art is so vast -- even if you’re only considering the  American  art of our time.  That’s what I learned from going to exhibitions every weekend for the past ten years. Whether it’s Puerto Rico  abstract expression or Ukrainian American tapestry - there's more different kinds of things out there than one lifetime can comprehend.

These requirements are beyond challenging -- and yet Waxman is now practicing a “short form” art criticism (the “60 wrd/min art critic”) that is intentionally shoot-from-the-hip rather than based on careful deliberation  and research. The critic declares that she will only spend twenty minutes on each review.   Occasionally  that review is judgmental rather than merely descriptive. That’s what I would call irresponsible - even if the artists are fully aware of the circumstances.

Whatever our theoretical differences, however, sometimes we come to similar conclusions in our reviews. The "Modernisms" show this year at the Block Museum is one that both of us covered. Here is her review in the Chicago Tribune ;  here is mine in New City .  We also both agreed about the Edlis / Neeson Collection. taking up so much space at the Art Institute for another fifty years.  

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It is amusing to see with what constant recurrence the epidemic of discussion on the subject of art criticism breaks out every now and again. Opinion on this matter is like a spring that overflows at irregular intervals. And that makes up for long periods of a quiescence by occasional displays of violent energy. There is no fore-telling when the outburst may come, nor how long it may continue; it begins as a rule with hardly a warning, and all at once drowns the world with a muddy torrent, that carries along all sorts of incongruous mental wreckage, and intellectual odds and ends. Yet these alarming manifestations are only so much force wasted. It is surely obvious that, so long as the artist who possesses and uses technical knowledge is confronted with a public that neither has nor desires anything of the sort, the critic must find occupation - as a go-between. This indeed, however it may be disguised, is the real mission of all who write about Art. 

 

......Alfred Lys Baldry (1858-1939)

 

an articulate statement of a kind of art writing in which I have no interest - as either reader or writer.  Why should anyone care about technical knowledge other than those artists who wish to learn how to use those techniques?

For what is the New Art Criticism? It is simply the attempt to apply to current art the same standards which we apply to ancient art, to disengage from the enormous stream of picture-producers the one or two contemporary masters who are worthy to be named beside the ancients, the one or two promising talents that may some day deserve the same praise ; to refuse steadfastly to confound the very good with the pretty bad, and to take mediocrity at its own estimate.... Dugald MacColl, 1893

So now you might say that I practiced  the "New Art Criticism" as it was practiced in London, c. 1890.... as long as we allow that these "standards" need never be articulated. They're like the Tao as described by Lao Tse -- whatever you say about them is wrong.

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Sean Talol self-publishes  as The Manhattan Art Review.  He covers the New York art world with short pithy comments, accompanied by a 1-5 star rating system much like movie critics use.

He has written this fine essay about art criticism.

 Is criticism nothing more than sophistry motivated by self-interest? Or does the critic have a role to play in helping us make “better” judgments about art? …….the critic’s social standing, however misused, is grounded in the possession of perceptual skills that are of cultural value. At present, even that allowance is no longer certain.

Right on!  Ironically, I find his writing about art criticism far more  entertaining, informative, and inspiring than his art criticism (even when I agree with it).   The essay tells us so much more about himself. ( and the 5-star system  is really rather useless unless you’re  familiar with the taste of the critic. It would be so helpful if  an online gallery of five-star contemporary pieces were posted)

 

  He’s a  34 year old writer who

"was born a pathological overthinker, neurotic and hard to please. For years I nursed vague artistic aspirations, but it turns out that obsessively thinking about art is a bad way to become an artist."

It’s also a bad way to write what I find readable.  The compelling subject here is human life. Not the ongoing history of art theory and techniques.

..... off-the-cuff reviews would attract more attention than intermittent longer essays. 

As Ben Davis noted, negativity also attracts more attention than positive — and as the new Republican Party has learned, colorful lies are better click-bait than boring truths.

 The value of these judgments is not in their being absolutely right or wrong, but in the way they crystallize the critic’s sensibility.


I’d rather have that sensibility elaborated than crystallized.


The disappointment of bad art is its inability to be anything more than what was expected, whereas one of the greatest pleasures of art—and one of the few well suited to the critic—is when it proves to be more than what was suggested by your preconceptions or by the small photo you could make out on your phone.


For me, the disappointment of bad art is that it’s a dead end.  You turn into it - like any other street on your journey  - and then it goes nowhere.  You have to back out. 

On less grand but more useful terms, artistic quality is never given; it has to be found, fought for and defended. This is the critic’s fight.


I don’t like to fight - let the artwork itself win or lose affection.  The critic can only report on their own experience.  And everyone is a critic when they say something like "Wow!  Did you see that ? It’s just like xxxxx"

…… the function of art: the struggle toward expression, to eloquently articulate qualities that are beautiful, emotive or otherwise engaging. 

The function of art:  to enhance human life through the imagination.

In the contemporary context, becoming cultured requires a resistance to the prevailing culture, and could ironically  be considered countercultural. Nevertheless the pursuit remains necessary, and perhaps even unavoidable, because it is intrinsic to our nature. I certainly agree with this first sentence:  popular culture creates whatever can be sold - whether it’s porn, French fries, or MAGA resentment.  University culture should be the antidote - but instead it’s been cultivating a narrow minded, overly mental conformity.  Becoming cultured needs to resist both.Cultivation is the growth into a distinct individuality by means of culture, an understanding of oneself and the world that always seeks to more fully encompass this understanding, a knowledge of life, an intelligence. 

High-Classical-culture person that I am - I’d like to say that I’ve seen the difference that it makes in the "knowledge of life" and "intelligence" of others —- but I can’t really.  And nothing  in this key sentence suggests anything like "spirituality" -  despite what follows.  This aspiration reaches toward an absolute, an omniscience that is both desired by and denied to humans: something I might call God if I were religious, but that for our purposes we can call the good. This good is something we can only put ourselves in service to. Good art, by extension, is good by its achievement of the good, a channeling of an external sense of life into an artwork. Good criticism seeks to recognize this good in art as much as it can. 

This is the sentence that provoked Ben Davis to write The Quasi-Theological Turn in Art Criticism is a Mirage Leading Art Criticism in the Wrong Way" and it echoes the quote from Thomas Aquinas that preceded it. Whoever dreamed we’d be arguing about scholasticism in 21st Century Art criticism?!?

You can mark me down as Franciscan as opposed to Dominican.  Reason has its uses - but spirituality is something else again.  And if you remember that 1987 groundbreaking exhibition at LACMA, "The Spiritual in Art" , spirituality has been important to much  of the art that came after Kandinsky.

The process of learning to discern what separates the truly good from the seemingly good, and the failed attempts at the good from the irredeemably bad, does not follow rules. 

Yes - there are no rules.  And if AI ever discovers any, they will apply to the new silicon life forms, not us hairy, smelly humans. …… However……I do think the human adventure is too ever changing to have a "truly good".  This is the medieval scholastic mind at work again. My alternative scale would be "most intensely good - benign - incompetent - confused - damaged "

Writing about art can have any number of objectives, but lurking behind any analysis is the question of judgment. Most contemporary art writing uses interpretation as a way of sidestepping the problem of quality, but interpretations are impossible to take seriously if the art itself is bad. A critic who avoids evaluation may have a less contentious body of work; perhaps they will protect themselves from ever saying anything that will sound embarrassing to future generations. I agree 100%   The cost is that they won’t be able to help their readers learn how to judge art or to understand it, which are in essence the same thing. Judging and understanding are far less important to me than experiencing - and surprisingly, Tatol himself writes something like that in the following quote:

The real sustenance of the artistic is the scope of experience it provides, the cumulative sense of growth and cultivation of ourselves through art, a tendency toward a good that we can never capture but only assist in radiating itself and existence.

I’d like to replace the word "good" with the phrase "higher energy" — if anyone really cares.

In his critique of Tatol,  Ben Davis offers two interesting quotes.

I retain, but suspend, my personal taste to deal with the panoply of the art I see. I have a trick for doing justice to an uncongenial work: “What would I like about this if I liked it?” I may come around; I may not. Failing that, I wonder, What must the people who like this be like? Anthropology. I assess art by quality and significance. The latter is most decisive for my choice of subjects, because I’m a journalist. There’s art I adore that I won’t write about, because I can’t imagine it mattering enough to general readers. It pertains to my private experience as a person, without which my activity as a critic would wither but which falls outside my critical mandate…………  Peter Schjeldahl ( I have written about him here )

Obviously, I do not share Peter Schjeldahl’s critical mandate - and so I must forever be self published. It does raise the question, however, whether publishable art criticism can ever be sincere.  It’s all phony: the writer pretends to pass judgment, but is only really a journalist.  He could just as well be reporting the weather.

The consumer service remains the professional basis for the staff reviewer’s job; fidelity, evidence, and so forth are still the measures of his value, but the high critical edge becomes misplaced, disproportionate when applied to most ordinary work. The staff critic is nonetheless obliged, and paid, to do more than simply mark time between rich periods and occasional masterpieces. The simple truth—this is okay, this is not okay, this is vile, this resembles that, this is good indeed, this is unspeakable—is not a day’s work for a thinking adult. Some critics go shrill. Others go stale. A lot go simultaneously shrill and stale… By far the most common tendency, however, is to stay put and simply to inflate, to pretend that each day’s text is after all a crisis—the most, first, best, worst, finest, meanest, deepest, etc.—to take on, since we are dealing in superlatives, one of the first, most unmistakable marks of the hack.......... Renata Adler

Another way of telling us that professional art critics are all phonies.

Two of our local painters,  Dmitry Samarov and Alan Pocaro , exemplify the kind of critic who is not.  Every few months or so, a show provokes them to write  -  and it gets published in an alternative weekly.  It’s not a living - but it’s one of many streams.  And they always have something interesting to say.

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Mention should now be made of that paragon of nasty quips and negative criticism, Denis Diderot - the super-star of 18th C.  art criticism. (I’ve written about one of his Salons here )

"I haven't the courage to describe this thing. Read Anacreon, and if you have a copy of his bust, burn Boizot's painting in front of it, pleading that he never again be permitted to produce anything so limp based upon so charming an author."

History has been validating Diderot for more than a century.  His favorite artist of the Salons was Chardin - and he considered most of the others as badly flawed and mockable.  You would probably agree with him as well.  His raucus negativity is forgiven because he was right.  That may or may not be the case with Tatol.  (mostly I think he needs to learn and experience a lot more before sharing his snap judgments)

But regarding his demand for qualitative judgment - that’s how I was taught and that’s what I live by.  An artist is no less responsible for producing good art than a chef is for presenting a wholesome and delicious entree - regardless of  the differing tastes of the customers. The artist establishes a taste - and lives or dies by it.

A hundred years ago, the universality of taste was proven by the encyclopedic museum - with a collection of alleged masterpieces that spanned continents and centuries.  That proof has been challenged by a conceptual relativism in the Humanities (what a statue of Anubis meant to an ancient Egyptian could not possibly be what it means to you).   It has also been challenged by an art market where objects of no special  visuality are sold for astronomical prices.  And there’s really no way to defend against them.  Either you see that universality or you don’t - and either you find it painfully absent in Andy Warhol , Jeff Koons, and Thomas Kinkade —- or you don’t.

I empathize with Tatol’s religious inclinations.  There is one Taste - just as there is one God ( or Tao ) - and a oneness in each piece.  Our small human minds can never fully comprehend it - but at least we can grow in understanding.

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We might note the title of Ben Davis’ first essay : " Is Art Criticism Today Too Affirmative? That’s the Wrong Question to Be Asking ".  And so ——- what question should  we ask?  His answer:  " Is “the question of judgment” really a full picture of what is at stake."  — rather than something like "how good are today’s art critics?"

And Ben Davis, though offering a fine critique of Tatol, nimbly dances around a notion of art criticism without actually offering one:

But if the vision for culture being offered is different from cultural conservatism in either its old-school or new-model forms, where a call to reassert aesthetic hierarchies is read together with a call to reassert social hierarchies, there’s good reason to be clear about how......The simplest and philosophically cleanest way to make this differentiation is just to incorporate the reality of aesthetic pluralism as a positive force into the theory—to say that it is not always a name for intellectual laziness but can also be a name for intellectual curiosity, that it is not a barrier to having standards but their desirable starting point.

So the best way to avoid "cultural conservatism" and still have standards  is to always be at the "starting point" ?  Davis just needs to consider the very high standards of his own prose - and realize that he has been well educated in the verbal, but not the visual arts.

Kano Masanobu, Bodhidharma in Red Robes (late 15th century)

In response to a query for "one work of art that brings you joy", here is  (an abbreviated version) of what Davis wrote:

What first stopped me is just how grumpy he looked. He’s got these big, haunted eyes, and he’s kind of giving you the side eye, like he’s not sure about you. He’s got heavy, frowny, wispy eyebrows. He’s got a five o’clock shadow. His hair is kind of scruffy.

But I also really love how vivid this image is. Like this painting really captures something for me. It just really looks like this guy who’s had a hard day, who’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, who thinks too much. He looks like someone who hasn’t had his coffee yet. It’s simple, but it’s very powerful for me.

After I saw this artwork and kept thinking about it; I kept thinking about why it stayed with me. The text at the Met says it is about Bodhidharma’s message: “look within to become a Buddha.” But this guy doesn’t look like he’s looking inside; he definitely is looking out at me. And he doesn’t look like he’s found tranquility; he’s scowling at me.

All of this is fine.  Joy is primarily what I seek in art - and it’s personal effect is exactly what I want an art critic to write about.

But Davis has only written about that  narrative theatrical part which many representations of the Bodhidharma have in common - and which a competent cartoonist could whip up today in a few minutes.

What about those more formal aspects of internal energy and how figure/ground become one?  What about the electric tension of the brush strokes as they shape and organize space ? This is what can make the ordinary feel profound.  To savor the  balance  between  something and nothing is especially meaningful in the context of Zen.

Nope - Davis has nothing to say about that— and since he is quite articulate, he probably would have mentioned it  had it made any difference to him.

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Now let’s move on to a short review by Sean Tatol:

Magalie Guerin , untitled (CC2), 2023

Magalie Guerin, Some Mondegreens, Sikkema Jenkins & Co.  :  **.5 The compositional sensibility is decent, if a little one note, but the real problem that's hard to shake is the insistence of a bad color palette. 

"bad color palette" is  quite reasonable as a personal preference - but as a serious criteria for quality in  painting ?   Tatol must be joking. His essay touted something like an education in the Liberal Arts as a path to deeper understanding and personal development. Here - as  Ben Davis puts it - he offers nothing more than "Random personal antipathy”

 

By contrast -  here is what John Yau had to say about the same show on Hyperallergic:

In her latest exhibition, what struck me immediately about Guérin’s work was that it neither looked like anyone else’s nor immediately disclosed its meaning.

 Both Guérin and Nozkowski are abstract artists who explore a subjective space that the latter helped open up, starting in the mid-1970s, when Conceptual art superseded painting. It is a direction in abstraction that has been largely overlooked because the critical narrative of 20th-century abstraction that has dominated Western art history focuses on the pursuit of objectivity, with an emphasis on external structures, such as the grid, two-dimensionality, paint as paint, and post-easel scale. Working from memory, Nozkowski undermined these measures of objectivity with skewed grids and irregular geometric shapes drawn from the landscape or things he experienced or read about.

I've liked Guerin's paintings for more than ten years - so I appreciate Yau's positive evaluation ("one of the best of her generation")  But more than that -- Yau's review introduced me to Thomas Nozkowski - so I could think about the similarites and especially the  differences.  That's the kind of thing I want from art criticism.

 

But I would not present this review as exemplary.

 

Regretfully, Yau's text is void of aesthetic response and judgment.   He's a poet - so it's enough for him to say that a painting  is enigmatic - without querying why anyone might care to puzzle it out.

Something does feel wrong or broken about Guerin's world - but her response has a strange grittiness  and determination that I find fascinating and admirable. And her work has become more lighthearted over the past two years. Has she found love?  I want to cheer her on.

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Barry Schwabsky, art critic for the Nation, had this to say:

The role of art criticism is to develop and formalize the conversation around art—to circulate ideas and perceptions. If that sounds vague, it's only as it should be, because there are many different kinds of criticism and all of them should be welcomed. One thing a lot of people ask about regarding criticism is the role of judgment—whether the critic is supposed to say what's good and bad, or simply to interpret. Personally, I don't see how those two functions, interpretation and evaluation, can be separated. You have to take a stand. My complaint about a lot of art criticism today is that the critic's stand—especially about what he or she is against—is too implicit. I'd like to see Peter Schjeldahl write a serious and thorough attack on Michael Asher, or Benjamin Buchloh do the same to Elizabeth Peyton. (I'm just guessing at what those two critics probably can't stand.) But when I say "serious and thor-ough" I really mean it—not just those snide offhand comments we are all good at. Of course, that would be hard work compared to writing about something you are enthusiastic about. Maybe that's why art critics need to be paid more—what else will get us to overcome our normal laziness?

Yes - judgement is never absent from description and critics should make it more. explicit.

Yes - it is much harder to make a thorough attack than offer praise or offhand dismissal.

Yes - art criticism has served to develop and formalize the  “conversation” around art 

But shouldn’t it also aim higher ? As if the critic were a kind of spiritual adept whose job is to elevate seekers towards a truth that can be seen rather than just conventionalize a new way of talking about things.

The notion of such an adept is absent from modern intellectual life.  But if a discourse makes no claim at all to a true, deeper understanding  - why become familiar with it ? - other than for the mundane purposes of selling things  or being recognized as knowledgeable.

  But he also had this to say in his introduction to the Vitamin P 2 catalog of contemporary paintings:

For me, and i think for many others, the ordinariness of painting has become one of its most important characteristics. It's where the much-cited modern project of linking art with everyday continues to be worked out……. trying to draw us closer to a sense of our own daily lives and to whatever is political, erotic and mystical. For me, and i think for many others, the ordinariness of painting has become one of its most important characteristics. It's where the much-cited modern project of linking art with everyday continues to be worked out……. trying to draw us closer to a sense of our own daily lives and to whatever is political, erotic and mystical.

I am among the “many others” mentioned above - and  “whatever is political, erotic, and mystical” does seem to encompass my interests as a viewer - noting that  it does not include the philosophical, historical, or theoretical - which was the focus of Schwabsky’s apologetics for painting in the first edition of “Vitamin P”.  Scanning the list of his reviews for The Nation, he is much more excited by ideas than by the feelings provoked as colors, tones,  lines, and shapes as they come together in significant form.

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Stumbling across “Against Interpretation” by Susan Sontag , “

I somewhat agreed with her polemic 

but do not agree that objective formal analysis is any better.

The best criticism is personal. It comes from someone you know, who also knows you - so you know where they’re coming from, and they know to whom they are speaking.  Yet it also must be astute - based on  experience and careful attentiveness.  Professional critics are not likely to know you - but hopefully they will aim at a similar audience. 

I want a personal answer to “why is this important?”  Whether they talk about form or content is up to them.  In the visual arts, this kind of mentorship will not be found among the few professional art critics who still get published. They must validate whatever money has elevated.  But among part-time writers in small publications exceptions do exist . I learn something from Dmitry Samarov every time I read him.

M.F. Husain at the Art Institute of Chicago

India, the largest experiment in democratic institutions the world has ever known, has many grave challenges. Pollution, communal strife, massive income disparity, and especially lawlessness continue to flourish. No wonder both M.F. Husain (1915-2011), the artist, and Lakshmi Mittal, his multi-billionaire patron, decided to live somewhere else. The awkward quality of these eight wall-size triptychs, twelve feet wide by six feet high, reflects this difficult moment in history. Executed 2008-2011, the design and drawing is crude, while the iconography wantonly conflates the personal with the national. Much of it is incomprehensible without the accompanying texts in the gallery signage which are often incomplete. Is this really how “India’s most important 20th-century artist” presents South Asia’s cultural legacy?

Mostly, what Husain has to offer is sincere affection and sentimentality. He loved the streets where he grew up, even if he could no longer walk them. Offended by how he depicted their deities, militant Hindus threatened his life. One of the triptychs in this show depicts the great trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, as Marc Chagall might have imagined them. They are more like charming characters in a folk tale than cosmic divinities who demand worship and interpretation. They feel no more sacred than the heroes of Bollywood cinema—just goofier—as if all of creation was a situation comedy.

A few pieces offer a pleasing, cheerful design – especially his depiction of “Traditional Indian Festivals” . The bold colorful pattern would look good printed on a tropical shirt, as well as hanging from the wall of a restaurant. One might note, however, that all three festivals depicted are Hindu, despite the artist’s Muslim background. Indeed, the only Muslims depicted in these eight paintings are the Mughal emperor, Akbar, and members of the artist’s own family.

For Americans, the most revealing piece might be “Indian Households.”. Grandfather and teenage granddaughter are sitting on the same bed— – he is smoking a hookah, while she is leaning back with her knees spread and a fresh green mango in her lap. That arrangement may suggest sexual transgression, – but probably not for those who grew up in small, one-room apartments. Americans might also be surprised by the prominence given in “Three Cities” to Chandra Bose. His status as a liberation leader has been undercut, for us, by his collaboration with Hitler.

For me, the most annoying piece is “Language of Stone”, a celebration of India’s tradition of stone carving. It hangs in the Alsdorf Galleries, surrounded by many examples of devotional sculpture whose qualities Husain’s stiff, awkward scrawl cannot even begin to suggest. Has India’s greatest artistic legacy really become so invisible in the modern world?

Husain’s approach to “The Indian Civilization” appears to be nostalgic both for the land of his childhood as well as the painting of early Twentieth Century European Modernists. He offers more of a suggestion than a strong connection to either one of them. His work has the content as well as the aesthetic quality of a cheap travel brochure. One of the great achievements of Hindustani classical music is that it expresses South Asian identity in a spiritual yet non-sectarian way. Husain’s attempt to do that with visual art was a noble, but not especially successful one.


“India Modern: The Paintings of M. F. Husain” shows through March 4 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan.

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Unlike most of the reviews posted to this blog,  this one was rejected by New City and an explicit reason given:

"It doesn't approach the work with the generosity of spirit that such works require, especially from the standpoint of someone who knows little about the culture from which it comes."


This review , written by Rachel Q. Levy,  a graduate student in Art History, was published in its place, and it exemplifies the kind of  "social justice" art commentary that now dominates academia.

First, one might note that an ideological assertion has been made without reference to specific evidence: "The triptych challenges recent claims by Hindu nationalists that India is synonymous with Hinduism"

Yet as I pointed out in the review left unpublished, the series portrays no Muslims other than Emperor Akbar and the artist's own family. The "Language of Stone" panel does include the Qutb Minar as well as ancient and medieval Hindu artifacts. But elsewhere, all the political leaders portrayed are Hindu, all the festivals portrayed are Hindu, all the deities portrayed are Hindu, and there are no Islamic saints or other spiritual leaders.

M.F. Husain's attitude towards Hindu hegemony is not as clear and simple as the reviewer would suggest. Husain seems to be reasserting it, though it's been secularized enough to displease some Hindu fundamentalists.  As they seek to align themselves with a well established political correctness, both the reviewer and the art editor have paid little attention to what was actually up on the wall.

Then, one might also note that aesthetic judgment has been made in the passive voice: "Husain is often referred to as “India’s Picasso.” Who, actually, has ever made that assertion?  There is no other mention of aesthetic qualities other than "rich color palette and grand scale" -- and the same could be said for most billboards along any highway.

The only indication that the reviewer has actually seen these pieces is her comment that the installation serves to interrupt the flow of traffic through the Alsdorf Galleries. If that is all one can say about the visual qualities of these paintings, why do they belong in an art museum ?

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