Today's Sunday Arts in the Post is a rare treat with not only a Blake Gopnik review of Douglas Gordon at the Corcoran, but also an incredibly rare gallery review by Gopnik's predecessor, Paul Richard of a couple of area painters at Fusebox Gallery.

First Gopnik...

In his review of Gordon, Gopnik (who is a big fan of video art - in fact he was once asked "what should artists be doing today, if they are serious artists?" and he answered "only manipulated photography and video") gushes about Gordon. If the New York Times' Roberta Smith is giddy about Gordon, then Gopnik is nearly orgasmic as he heaves praise after praise on the Scottish artist's video work. You can also see a video of Blake discussing the show here. A video of a video show... if Blake slows it down to a video frame a minute... then is it great art redux?

I will visit this show next week and let you know which bodily function of mine it affects.

Paul Richard used to be the Post's Chief Art Critic until he retired a couple of years ago and was replaced by Gopnik. Unlike Gopnik, who rarely if ever visits area galleries and concentrates nearly exclusively on museum shows (at least so far), Richard's longevity at the Post allowed him to become deeply immersed in Washington area artists, galleries and scene. His review of Fusebox in today's Sunday Arts is a rare treat from the Post, and offers us an insight into a couple of things beyond the review itself.

First, this is the kind of visual arts coverage that the Post should be doing every Sunday, or at least once a month, not once or twice a year. Fusebox, which is a very hard-working gallery, gets the kind of coverage with this review that most area gallery owners would trade their first-born for (if any had children that is). That is good for Fusebox and for Washington art, and the Post should do it more often.

But the review itself is something else...

Richard uses his ample and first-hand knowledge of Washington art, artists and history to give painter Jason Gubbiotti something worse than a bad review (such as Jessica Dawson once gave painter Andrew Wodzianski when she destroyed him in this review). He gives Jason a patronizing review, expressing some interest here and there, but also handcuffing Gubbiotti too close to the Color School guys that Richard probably used to hang around with. He even dubs Jason's work as "fey."

I think that a review is good if it's really super passionate either way - such as Gopnik's glowing review of Gordon and Dawson's brutalizing of Wodzianski and C.M. Dupre or Gopnik's now famous destruction of J. Seward Johnson.

Richard treats Ian Whitmore, the other painter in the show, with less attention but a bit more kindness. I quite like Whitmore's work and have reviewed it favorably in the past, when he exhibited at "Strictly painting IV" at the McLean Project for the Arts - a show co-curated by Fusebox's Sarah Finlay.

But, in case you missed it, he also sends his successor, Blake Gopnik a not so subtle message in the last paragraph of the review. Blake's position on the issue of "painting is dead" is well-known. So Richard closes his review by writing:

"I liked these shows. What I liked best about them is that neither offers videos or blown-up back-lit photographs. It is nowadays a treat to encounter ambitious young artists who love the smell of paint."

Who says art criticism is boring? Am I the only one who'd love to read a review of the same show, independently done and written, by these two guys?

How about the The Quilts of Gee's Bend?