Washington, DC Art News

Aw Blake, why not a little amateur dentistry every once in a while? Someone might drill a hole in your head and a little light might shine in. Yeah, violently spiteful language, but "five floors of mediocrity jammed into shabby rooms in an indiscriminate show that does nothing to advance the cause of serious art?" What's the "cause of serious art," Blake? You've never been a real artist, so that would have to be a guess on your part. Unless you're a "failed" artist, which I'm not - nor is any artist here. I'm an art critic, too, and I know what "untrained" art looks like, and Art-o-matic is loaded with all kinds of such madness, openness, and awfulness. And sometimes, if you look, real grace.

In 1978, Walter Hopps, then adjunct curator at the National Collection of Fine Arts, "curated" a show at Washington's now-defunct Museum of Temporary Art entitled "36 Hours," during which artists could bring in anything (of a certain size) during a 36-hour period and Walter would find a place to hang it. Good, bad, or ugly. I was proud to have been in that show, as I am to be in this one. Why? Look at how "indiscriminate" it all is, how generally free of the kinds of comfortably gifted, commercially sensitive, critically "savvy" (your word, never mine) art that most galleries and museums necessarily have to exhibit in order to maintain their identities - work I often respect and write about, as you do. Alternative spaces, as creatively as they operate, can show only a few dozen artists a year. Art-o-matic circumvents every aesthetic filter, respects no critical power, and opens its doors anyway.

What final virtue exists in a circus like Art-o-matic? Art is made in order to make concrete the deep abstraction that is the self. Each artist here, regardless of the depths of their relation to the discourse of art history, has a story and a unique identity that emerges on these walls. In enormous vulnerability. To be able to stand alongside the occasionally talentless courage, manic generosity, and raw eccentricity of my fellow artists is a real honor. Because what art is about isn't safe.

What you write is journalism, Blake, not art criticism. Your writing is quite often toxic, and maybe Washington’s just not your town. Think about it. You say Ter Borch is better than Vermeer? Don't make me laugh.

J. W. Mahoney

"The painter," Wolfe writes, "had to dedicate himself to the quirky god Avant-Garde. He had to keep one devout eye peeled for the new edge on the blade of the wedge of the head on the latest pick thrust of the newest exploratory probe of this fall's avant-garde Breakthrough of the Century.... At the same time he had to keep his other eye cocked to see if anyone in le monde was watching."

It landed on my desk a few weeks ago with an echoing thump that could have awakened Brooks Atkinson. On the cover it said "Save the Listings: Restore the 'Arts & Leisure Guide' to the Sunday New York Times." Inside, 615 pages carried 5,000 Internet-gathered signatures, many of them accompanied by bits of testimony variously beseeching, enraged or tearful.

Just a few weeks earlier, The Times had tossed the venerable columns of agate type that had filled so many pages of the Arts & Leisure section for so long, with as many as 300 cultural events acknowledged, however briefly, in a single edition.

Editors reacted to the petition, I soon learned, the way editors almost always react when readers rise against a long-planned, well-intended innovation: a little dumbfounded, a little defensive, a little dismissive.

In this case, the editors had helped more than enough to earn the readers' disapproval. At a time when most American newspapers are slashing arts coverage (according to a study conducted by the National Arts Journalism Project at Columbia, from 1998 to 2003 the space given to cultural coverage in major American papers dropped by roughly 25 percent), The Times had gone in the opposite direction. The revamped cultural report now included more than seven additional pages per week. Twenty staff positions were created to produce the new content and improve the old. Full-time reporters had been put on the architecture, classical music and theater beats, and additional reporters will soon supplement the art, movie and television groups. Critics have been newly assigned to experimental arts, the Internet, and "nonart museums and exhibitions" (there must be a better phrase than that), and some lustrous new hires - notably Manohla Dargis on movies and Charles Isherwood on theater - have brought an added gleam to existing positions.

There's an unfortunate tendency in the newspaper business to disparage a petition like this one as an "organized" effort, as if only random, disconnected cries of pain from despairing readers should be heeded. I've also heard this particular protest dismissed as "commercially inspired" by self-interested arts presenters and promoters who are worried that the box office will suffer, and have disingenuously conspired to rouse the masses.

Here's the good news, Listings Protesters of America: uncharacteristically for an institution that is slow to change and usually inflexible once it has done so, the editors are prepared to alter their course.

"As a result of this explosion, the inevitable anti-Chelsea backlash has been on the rise, too. The rap against Chelsea is that it is too big, too commercial, too slick, too conservative and too homogenous, a monolith of art commerce tricked out in look-alike white boxes and shot through with kitsch. This litany is recited by visitors from Los Angeles and Europe, by dealers with galleries in other parts of Manhattan or in Brooklyn and often by Chelsea dealers themselves. As the Lower East Side gallerist Michele Maccarone put it recently in an interview: 'The Chelseafication of the art world has created a consensus of mediocrity and frivolousness.'"

"As things stand, too many local artists, as well as a few of our dealers, get attention they wouldn't get in any city where they faced some decent, savvy competition."

"This year the [Chelsea] scene seems to have grown, if that's possible. It now takes two full days, morning to night, to visit just the best-known Chelsea galleries. But for the first time that I can remember, doing the autumn rounds felt mostly worthwhile. There was real variety on view -- of medium, subject matter, approach, scale. More important, there were a few artists and works that didn't fit into convenient pigeonholes. There were shows that left questions hanging in the air."

MUSEFUL CRITIQUE

For all his ranting about "bad" art projects in the District this past year, Washington Post critic Blake Gopnik hasn’t actually done much to stop them. In fact, the Oxford University–educated art historian has done just the opposite.

To wit: Last spring, Gopnik ripped the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ "exciting public art project," PandaMania. In fact, he likened the task of painting blank panda statues to filling in a coloring book. "It would take a really skilled contemporary artist to turn a coloring book into something worth an art lover’s time," Gopnik wrote in a May 30 Post critique. "There probably aren’t more than a half-dozen artists in this city who could do it."

Oh, but Bethesda, Md., painter Marsha Stein thought she could find a few. So she formally challenged Gopnik to hand-pick a team of artists to compete against hers. Each team would paint a blank two-foot cube, with the public voting on the best one.

Gopnik politely declined the challenge. But that didn’t stop Stein: Her project has since evolved into a multiteam competition—albeit sans cubes—that D.C. filmmaker Nigel Parkinson is shooting for a documentary. Or maybe a reality-TV show.

"He just pushes people’s buttons," Stein says of Gopnik. "He does my job for me. He couldn’t have fueled this competition any better than by writing that article."

More recently, Gopnik issued a scathing critique of Artomatic 2004, the exhibition of works by some 600 area artists now showing in the former Capital Children’s Museum. In a Nov. 11 Post piece, he called the show "the second-worst display of art I’ve ever seen. The only one to beat it out, by the thinnest of split hairs, was the 2002 Artomatic, which was worse only by virtue of being even bigger and in an even more atrocious space."

"Artomatic isn’t only good for nothing," Gopnik concluded. "It’s bad for art that matters."

Again, artists responded. For starters, there’s The Official Artomatic 2004 Boo Blake Wall, an installation papered with angry letters from Artomatic exhibitors and dotted with Travis Miller– designed stickers that read: "Blake isn’t only good for nothing. He’s bad for art that matters." And sculptor Mark Jenkins has posted a phony news story reporting Gopnik’s kidnapping by "human figures made of packaging tape."

The wall is also splashed with red paint, some of which drips down into a plastic bag taped to the ground. "Somebody said it looks like bullet holes and blood," notes Artomatic executive-committee member Jim Tretick.

A less ominous homage to Gopnik appears at Artomatic’s Overlook Bar: A case of warm beer wrapped in white paper and labeled "One vintage case of Icehouse from Artomatic 2002: The worst beer from the worst show."

"That case of beer has been sitting in my basement for two years," says Tretick. "We were saving it for a special occasion."

Right beside the beer is a brand-new Clue game wrapped in a plastic bag for Gopnik. And the artists aren’t done yet. McLean, Va.–based graphic designer Jesse Thomas is now putting the finishes touches on a new collage inspired by Gopnik.

The tributes to Gopnik come as news to the critic. "I didn’t know about any of the Artomatic responses," he writes via e-mail. Gopnik’s own response? Something in Latin about judges and matters of taste: "De gustibus non...I guess."

"There are properties in an artist's pen and brush strokes that aren't visible to the human eye, but that are there nonetheless. And we can find them, through mathematical, statistical analysis," said Dartmouth computer science professor Hany Farid, who developed the algorithms, along with math professor Daniel Rockmore and graduate student Siwei Lyu."

"Museum curators and statisticians caution that the Dartmouth group's techniques have only begun to be tested. Using algorithms to back up scholars' suspicions is one thing; uncovering a fraud with just a computer, that's completely different. And in the art world, no scientific method is considered as sure as the eye of a seasoned connoisseur.

"This is very unusual," said Nadine Orenstein, the curator of the drawings and prints department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "We're all a bit skeptical."

"I’m highly skeptical of using the computer for this kind of approach," said Laurence Kanter, curator in charge of the Robert Lehman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. "It’s very possible that a program like that could be exploited to great advantage, but I still need to be persuaded."

"D.C. As It Was, Is, and Could Be

Five months ago a project began with a simple idea to create a modest collection of hand crafted furniture in the spirit of the approaching Artomatic. The exhibition was to take place in the City Museum one month before Artomatic in order to promote not only that event, but also the City Museum itself.

As the project moved forward, the collection grew substantially in size and importance. Artists created pieces that reflected their vision of how the District of Columbia can be seen in three distinct phases. Not everything is pretty or refined, but instead true.

All cities have dark sides that are often difficult to view, but those are some of the core elements that strive to make us become better citizens.

Upon the completion of the installation, it was decided that the collection needed to be removed from the City Museum for reasons varying from labels to suitability issues.

Twenty hours after the installation, the show had been dismantled and placed securely into storage. News of the cancellation hit the Associated Press and spread across the globe.

Many new venues for the show were considered, but it was determined to bring the collection home to reside in the 2004 Artomatic. Here you can view our ideas and concepts. Some of which you may agree, and many with which you may disagree, but that is what makes our city one of the world's greatest cities.

This collection will be put on the auction block on Saturday, December 4th at 9pm at Artomatic."

"I was really impressed by Art-o-Matic, awful art and everything. Gopnik clearly missed the point. Kudos to you for your blog. The event was perfect for sparking the discussion over "what is art?" and "what right does an artist (or self-perceived artist) have to exhibit?" The sheer energy of the event was art in itself. For a city that is not known elsewhere for its artistic community, this is truly a spectacular contribution."

"As one of Artomatic's mediocre artists, I have to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I joined Artomatic because the work is not juried or censored. The great thing is that anyone can join and have their work displayed without having someone's prejudiced, narrow-minded precepts attempt to determine the worthiness of another's creativity.

Many of the established schools of art started out as a revolt against the status quo. Artomatic offers a range of art styles and mediums; I encourage the public to come out and see what is offered. Some of the work you'll like and some you won't, but you won't go away bored. It's been a long time since I've seen such vehemence in a review."

James W. Bailey’s Top List of Angels and Devils Working the Mystery of God in Art-O-Matic 2004

Art-O-Matic 2004 – A Mississippi-style Juke Joint of Art

The Religion of the Juke Joint

"The juke joints in Mississippi are the only place in the state where God and the Devil get equal time." James Edward Bailey, my great-grandfather.

"I’ve been to Art-O-Matic 2004 and I’ve been Slain in the Spirit. There are angels and devils working mischief in that building and thank God for it." James W. Bailey.

What does it mean to be Slain in the Spirit?

Being slain is a phenomenon that is sweeping through many Pentecostal-Charismatic churches in the South today. When "slain" people are knocked on the floor unconscious, some shake, some laugh, or lay paralyzed unable to move. Many Charismatic leaders are teaching that believers need to experience the "slaying" often. However, there are some reported extreme manifestations of this behavior where some "slain" individuals have stripped and exhibited lewd behavior. A few churches have even organized patrols to monitor their congregations because of the high amount of sexual immorality that has been manifested.

So the question is this: is being "slain" a God thing?

Catfish Alley – A Young Mississippi Boy’s Perspective on Cutting Edge Art

I was born and raised in a small, quiet genteel Mississippi town called Columbus. My hometown is famous for two things:

1. Being the birth place of Tennessee Williams.

2. Having a treasure trove collection of Ante-Bellum Greek Revival Plantation Mansions that were never destroyed during the Civil War because the Yankees decided at the last second to attack and destroy a nearby town called West Point.

As a young boy, however, the thing that interested me more than anything else in my hometown was the Black Culture and Music that was to be found in a blacks-only business and Juke Joint district called Catfish Alley; Catfish Alley was off-limits to whites. Whites partied in their bars and blacks partied in their Juke Joints and the two cultures never dared cross that racial line.

My father, however, was a fireman and I used to visit the mysterious and wild Juke Joints of Catfish Alley with him when he would make annual fire inspections.

The African-American community found its niche and prospered in Catfish Alley. Former post-Civil War era servants developed their own businesses and civic life from the part of town known as "Catfish Alley," which is actually a block on 4th Street South between College Street and Main Street.

According to the late Dr. E.J. Stringer, a Columbus, Mississippi, civil rights leader, politician, minister and dentist, Catfish Alley was the hub of activity for rural blacks who came into town to sell fresh vegetables and the catfish they caught along the way.

"Long before the 1940s, there were provisions to either sell the catfish uncooked, or cook it on the spot and sell it by the plate. When it was cooked, the aroma of the catfish filled the air, thus the name ‘Catfish Alley’. As long as I can remember, Catfish Alley served as a place where laborers gathered for transportation provided by employers, and it was a place where people congregated to talk and to exchange news and ideas. It was the site of black-owned businesses and professional offices, and a place for people who made a difference in the black community." Dr. E. J. Stringer.

Dr. Stringer, who once had his dental office in "The Alley," said that his greatest desire was to see people get along; to achieve oneness of community. He died in 1995.

When I was 8 years old I walked into a Juke Joint in Catfish Alley with my father on a fire inspection and was first Slain in the Spirit when I saw the most amazing collection of Mississippi African-American outsider and folk art that was hanging from every square inch of available wall space.

I had never seen anything like it. Standing in the presence of this incredible collection of art produced by people I had never heard off, featuring imagery I had never seen, left me breathless. I had never been exposed to the voices and imagination of black people in my home state in such a personal, powerful and emotive way. I knew that God was working through the people who created this art to send a message to the world. I stood there transfixed trying to understand what God was saying through these works of art.

The Blues of Art

Down in Mississippi, we have a saying, "You ain’t heard it if you ain’t listened to it." In the world of Blues music what this means is this: If you think you’re listening to the real Blues when you pay $500 for a scalped ticket to an intimate plush venue to hear an English "blues" guitarist sing the "blues" while you and your date sip on Heinekens, then you ain’t really ever heard the real Blues.

To hear the real deal, you’re gonna need to slip back in time, wind your way down South to Mississippi and find a Juke Joint. The real Blues is played by people you’ve never heard of: Musicians and singers like, "Preacher Peacock" Morgan, David "Three-Strings" Jones, Bill "Sunday School" Taylor, Johnny "T-Rex" Martin, etc. These people never had a recording contract, never cut a record, but played their hearts and souls out at Juke Joints that have long disappeared. But people did hear them, though. I am one who bears witness to voices of Angels.

Art-O-Matic 2004 – I Went Down Into The Diamond Mine To Find A Diamond And Discovered The Rough Instead

Art-O-Matic is a Mississippi-style Juke Joint of a Diamond Mine of Art. Sure, there’s a lot of rough stuff there; and there are some diamonds. But the rough stuff gives birth to the diamonds, not the other way around.

Lenny has mentioned that he has noticed a lot of the Top Ten Lists are gravitating toward a common theme. I have noticed that as well. That troubles me. It’s too easy to go into a diamond mine and shift the chafe for the wheat and pick out the diamonds that fall easily to the bottom of the basket.

No disrespect to the creators of the diamonds, many of whom I know and respect, but their diamonds have already been, for the most part, presented in the sanctuary of the white cube space. I climbed down into the diamond mine looking for the raw energy, the troubling elements, the fractured particles and the substance of the rough stuff that gives birth to the diamonds.

Walking into Art-O-Matic 2004 sent me reeling in the years back to being 8 years old and walking into that Juke Joint in Catfish Alley in Columbus, Mississippi. I found art and artists that I know God has spoken through.

I wasn’t looking for the diamonds to develop my list. I was looking for the Devil Himself to jump right out of a whiskey bottle and pop up in my face and dare me to drink that bottle. The works of the artists who have made my list did just that.

To have a personal conversation with God you have got to first dance with the Devil. These artists have put their vision ahead of every other consideration and have walked with the Devil and talked with the Lord.

I could have easily chosen another group to list. I went with the powerfully spiritual feeling that overwhelmed me with those works I saw during my two visits.

Most of these artists I don't know and have never heard of. A few I do know. One young woman, whose name I will not name out of respect for her privacy, has already tasted the sting of censorship with two beautiful nude photographs in a recent regional exhibition. Her two photographs in question are on exhibit at Art-O-Matic. Art-O-Matic is to be commended for supporting the exhibition of challenging works of art.

The Devil will not silence these artists.

If you’re looking for diamonds, they are some to be found at Art-O-Matic. If you’re looking, and willing, to explore deep into subterranean world of local art, you will see some amazing stuff.

For those artists, art critics, social critics, critic critics and others who spend more time destroying than creating, know that part of my Scots-Irish Mississippi personality wants to engage you in an endless debate over the merits of Art-O-Matic.

Indeed, I do have certain issues myself. But they related to organizational issues. I believe Art-O-Matic needs to become a artist member not for profit 501(c)3 organization because I believe the enormous energy of the artists who are so passionate about this event needs to be brought together in a more effective way to sustain, market and promote the event.

But for those relentless critics of Art-O-Matic who will never be satisfied, another part of my personality wants to just say what we say in the beautiful Magnolia State when we are just plain worn-out arguing with knuckle-heads over their stupidity. We cut them off with a big Rebel Yell and scream, "Fuck all Ya’ll!"

I offer my following list in the revolutionary spirit of radical anarchist activist, Abbie Hoffman, of "Steal This Book" fame.

I dedicate my list to the vision and integrity of Philip Barlow. May Mr. Barlow’s vision for OPTIONS 05 be presented sometime, somewhere, somehow. If I have selected just one artist who might represent just a particle of Mr. Barlow’s vision for OPTIONS 05, then I have done something important.

Steal This Art Today List! - The following artists present work worth the minimum risk of a serious art collector being charged with felony grand theft in their efforts to steal work from right out underneath the nose of the artist because these works show great potential of future increases in value. If you’re an asshole art collector, get the work of these artists now and pray the artist commits suicide in a very tragic and high-profile public fashion, thus driving up the value of your collection. These works are insanely under-priced for value. For those art collectors who care about deeper issues with the art they buy, know this: These artists are talking with God. Their conversations with Him are interesting.

My list is in alphabetic order, like the way my momma taught me. I choose the following:

Chuck Baxter
Shannon Chester
J. Coleman
Teresa Ghiglino
N. John Grunwell
R. Will Helms
Dale Hunt
M. Erin Hunter
G. Rashia Linendoll
M. Lisa McCarty
M. Iver Olson
Stefanie Pierpoint
Megan Raines
J. Kim Reyes
A. Bailey Rosen
D. Lisa Schumaier
Luis Scotti
Anna Shakeeva

To all the participating artists of Art-O-Matic 2004, I say stay true unto yourself and unto your vision.

Rock The Art!

James W. Bailey

Experimental Mississippi Photographer

"Or maybe, just maybe, you did it because, for just this once, there wasn't anyone telling you that you couldn't."

"Artomatic felt more alive and vibrant than any other art event I've been to in DC, and I can't imagine it not being worth a couple of hours of anyone's time. Even if you end up hating everything in it, I can't imagine it being a waste of time to drop by. Lots of angst, gaudiness, crappy work, good work, earnestness, politics, thoughtfulness, whimsy, and an unbelievable amount of everything else not listed."

"There may just be a few decent things hidden in the mix -- with so many thousands of objects on display, the law of averages says there must be. But three hours' worth of looking didn't spot too many. Some of the glasswork looked all right. (Glass is such a gorgeous medium it's hard to screw it up, and you need some basic training even to begin to work in it.)"

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves," (Matthew 7:15).

It is unlikely that most will ever meet an artist who will say, "I am a false prophet, follow me."

A "spiritual" artist will present themselves as a true prophet; and they will indeed appear to be true. But when confronted by a false prophet artist, one must search deeper and examine the artistic, social, psychological and legal implications of their words and ideas. False prophet artists will speak their prophecies and teachings with a golden tongue that will seem true and desirable. The best method of discerning the truth of a false prophet artist is by subjecting their prophecies and teachings to a critical examination of the implications of their artistic vision. The truth will stand the strongest test; error will be exposed.

Mr. Wimberly would have us believe the art world has devolved and is corrupt; he is right. He would also have us believe that standards need to be implemented to salvage the concept of real art from the masses; he is wrong.

Mr. Wimberly laments the fact that too many non-real artists are polluting the universe with their un-real art through events such as Artomatic. If, in his world, we only had an Inter-Galactic Art Commission of learned art professionals who would design, develop and implement a legal code of professional art standards, enforced by a Federation Art Police, of course, then we could all safely enjoy the privilege of viewing, absorbing, contemplating, being inspired by and buying real art made by real artists.

No doubt, under Mr. Wimberly’s scheme for the rehabilitation and salvation of the art world, such an Inter-Galactic Art Commission would be legally empowered to issue Professional Art Licenses to real artists so that these licensed real artists would be legally permitted to ply their craft to a more culturally sensitive audience who would be protected by the knowledge that the artists who they are likely to buy from are safe, certified and state approved by an art regulatory agency that operates in everyone’s best interest.

No doubt Mr. Wimberly, because of his profound insight concerning the corruption of the definition, meaning and purpose of contemporary fine art, would also expect to be asked to serve in the capacity of Board Director of the Inter-Galatic Art Commission so that he could more effectively advocate for his art philosophy to be enshrined into a Felony Criminal Art Code that would be enforced against those unlicensed un-real artists who would dare to try to operate under the radar in the back alleys of the illegal art gallery districts around the world, including Artomatic.

Allow me to offer some down-home Mississippi no B.S. wisdom from the perspective of an artist who recognizes a false prophet when he sees one. What Mr. Wimberly is really concerned about is this: He and a bunch of "real" artists he knows ain’t makin’ enough money out there in the REAL world tryin’ to sell stuff they "create" that other people think is junk and just plain don’t wanna buy!

Do I believe the modern art world is corrupt? Let me put it this way: I basically believe that the modern art world has absolutely turned its back on the general population. It has for some time now been taken over and hijacked by an elitist element of art snobs and ethereal professionals who have done everything in their power to remove the context, purpose and vibrancy of art from the realm of the people and have placed it in the ivory tower cages of the museum and gallery structure.

The present art world system allows these self-anointed art gods, the Artfanistas as I call them, to build successful and well paid careers as museum directors, curators, art dealers, gallery owners, and yes, a handful of internationally celebrated artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, who Mr. Wimberly properly despises.

The modern art system is one with a historic parallel: Being from Mississippi, I know all about the share-cropping system. What exists today in the art world, especially in this country, is an art version of the post-Civil War Mississippi Delta plantation. The plantation owners are the so-called leading art museums. The plantation foremen are the museum curators. The sharecroppers are the emerging artists who strive to be "real" artists under the definition of what is “real” that is defined by god knows who. What you have to do as an artist sharecropper, and as a human being, to elevate your self through the plantation system to artistic independence, to that coveted position of celebrated international artist superstar, is almost unspeakable. Selling out doesn't even begin to describe it.

The results for the artistic health of this country are horrible. The average American is absolutely alienated from contemporary art. They are alienated because they have been treated with contempt by the modern art establishment. The thinking that prevails in New York is that the average American is a cultural idiot who is too unsophisticated to understand the secret language of modern art.

"Therefore, considering how stupid most art ignorant Americans are, especially those idiots down South in the Red States, it would be an incredible waste of our valuable time and resources to share our wealth of secret knowledge with them to help them understand what they don't know and will never appreciate," New York Artfanista.

The fact of the matter is that the average American is damned smart and can smell bullshit from a thousand miles away, all the way up to the top floor of The Whitney Museum of Art in New York and right down the road to their local frustrated suburban upper-middle class white talent-challenged semi-depressed I-want-to-suffer-the-life-of-the-real-urban-poor-people-so-I-can-sensitively-present-the-painful-imagery-of-their-miserable-lives artist who sits in his or her rented inner-city crack-house basement “studio” whining and crying about how the world sucks because the concept of real art has been lost and nobody will support them as an artist and buy their crap!

The Gospel According to St. James the Photographer of Experiments:

Littoral Art: The Art of the Gift - I believe that an ethical artist who lives a life of integrity has a responsibility to share their art in a way that intersects with and becomes part of the life of their community, society and nation. I believe in the principles of moral art as articulated by Bruce Barber in his work, “Sentences on Littoral Art”. This is a radical position for art because it has nothing to do with art objects within the modern art milieu where it's all about getting your 15 minutes and $15 million for a “created” object.

The present modern art super-structure works against the principles of Littoral Art. The current system is set up to further the careers, artistic and professional, of those on the inside who are obsessed with art objects. The rewards for success are fame and money. At the end of the day, what does the art created do to make the world a better, safer more peaceful place? Nothing...because that is not even the goal under this system.

I strongly believe that artists have the power to change the world. Not just interpret it or represent it or create art objects about it. What I mean by that is that artists can use an expanded definition of art to advocate, instruct, share and involve people in demanding reforms of corrupt systems of power, whether political, social or cultural.

I believe that Artomatic, whatever its failings may be, is a step in the right direction to an expanded definition of art.

Mr. Wimberly’s views reflect the endless obsessions of far too many artists who have been left behind on planet Earth who pine for the day when high quality hand-crafted artistic art objects were the definition of art and were sought after and fought over by sophisticated art collectors; indeed, a beautiful era when a handful of expert artisans were elevated to near god-like status and enjoyed the wealth bestowed upon them by the spiritually enlightened with access to unlimited funds in Swiss bank accounts.

Some of us less nostalgic and less ambitious artists took advantage of mid-20th century space flight opportunities and traveled to distant stars and galaxies and have seen the power of art removed from the object. We have for some time now been sending encoded messages about radical art practices we have discovered on other planets back home to Earth. Some of these messages have been received and decoded by artists you may know. Be warned: Some of the artists who have decoded these messages and shared them with others may in fact be false prophet artists; indeed, some may in fact be false artists profiting as real artists.

The WORD has been given: There is no excuse to not recognize such false prophet artists now... indeed, I may be one myself, but at least I’m willing to admit to the possibility that I am.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey
Experimental Photographer

I wish someone would explain to me why people feel that art needs to be defined, ruled or standardized. WTF?! Doing so is the antithesis of art. Does requiring artistic standards allow people to feel secure? By setting up narrow path to creating art are they defining their own way of creating and trying to impose it on others?

I understand the need for structure. Our lives would be chaos without it. But art, at least in my life, is one of the few remaining areas that are free of standards and rules. I value that fact immeasurably. This one area of unlimited creativity is a rarity in today’s over-regulated world. It allows us total freedom of expression.

My work doesn't have to be labeled Art. I really don’t care what it is called. Call it crap, call it interesting, or call it great. A label does not deny art's existence or its effect. Look at the history. As forms of expression change they must break from "standards" and stand on new ground. Of course, in a matter of time these changes become the "standard" themselves and must be changed again. Look at the history.

Jamie's "standards" are wonderful; for HIM to work under. I believe that setting up a structure, or defining art with a set of rules on a personal level is OK. It’s part of the process. Bring out your scales! Artists do the same with every decision we make when creating a single piece. We define the work by our choices. But I see no reason to lay my creative structure on anyone else. I would no sooner tell a person how to create art than I’d tell them how to be happy. I don’t mind getting a license and taking a test to drive a car, but please, allow me the freedom to make my art the way I believe it should be done. Anything else smells of sour grapes.

"I cut the article out and put it on my stomach like it would heal me," Mr. LeRoy said in a twang left over from his West Virginia childhood. "But it didn't heal me. The thing about attention is it's like drinking. One drink is too many, and a million isn't enough."

Is Blake Gopnick possibly sending the art world a coded message about Artomatic 2004?

Anterograde Amnesia

Anterograde amnesia is a selective memory deficit, resulting from brain injury, in which the individual is severely impaired in learning new information. Memories for events that occurred before the injury may be largely spared, but events that occurred since the injury may be lost. In practice, this means that an individual with amnesia may have good memory for childhood and for the years before the injury, but may remember little or nothing from the years since. Short-term memory is generally spared, which means that the individual may be able to carry on a conversation; but as soon as he is distracted, the memory of the conversation fades.

It is now becoming apparent that while anterograde amnesia devastates memory for facts or events, it may spare memory for skills or habits. Thus, an individual with amnesia can be taught a new skill, such as how to play a game or how to write backwards. The next day, the amnesic individual will claim to have no memory of the prior session, but when asked to try executing the skill, can often perform quite well - indicating that some memories have been formed. It is an important area of current research to document exactly which kinds of memory can be formed in amnesia, and how this may be used to help rehabilitate amnesic individuals.

Is it possible that Mr. Gopnick suffered a severe trauma incident at Artomatic 2002 that has resulted in him being unable to form post Artomatic 2002 memories?

Is it also possible that Mr. Gopnick has formed the new ability to write backward and that his review on Artomatic 2004 was thus written backward?

I have taken the liberty, inspired by William S. Burroughs’ Word Cut-Ups method, and repositioned Mr. Gopnick’s paragraphs in what I believe to be their proper sequence.

I believe Mr. Gopnick may be trying to send us all a coded message.

Hanging Artomatic 2004 Is Good for It, Too
By Blake Gopnik
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 11, 2004

Artomatic costs more than $100,000 to put on, drawing funds from the artists themselves as well as from the public and private sectors; it absorbs major gifts in kind and vast amounts of volunteer time; it gets plenty of media coverage and pulls in tens of thousands of visitors. And all the money and resources and attention that go Artomatic's way are, by definition, not going to serious art that needs a boost, and deserves a higher public profile. Artomatic isn't only good for nothing. It's bad for art that matters.

It's not as though we are a society that fiercely discourages the making of art, one that needs an Artomatic just to make sure anything gets made at all. More art schools turn out more trained artists every year, and they all have to compete for a slice of the same meager pie of patronage, funding and public attention.

What the District truly needs is more displays of carefully selected, quality contemporary art, so that local emerging artists -- and, just as importantly, their public -- would have more and better examples of how serious creativity can work. As things stand, too many local artists, as well as a few of our dealers, get attention they wouldn't get in any city where they faced some decent, savvy competition. The region needs its artistic bar raised another notch or two. Whereas Artomatic, of course, removes the bar entirely and invites anyone and everyone to stroll on in and strut their stuff.

Despite public perceptions, the art world isn't anything like a closed shop: Curators, dealers and critics are always on a desperate hunt for new makers of new kinds of art, and they'll take it absolutely anywhere they can get it. Well-known mid-career artists are the ones who tend to face neglect; the hot young things that no one's seen before are where the action is. I guarantee that anyone with talent who might be discovered at a show like Artomatic would have had a fine chance of being discovered anyway.

After all, there are already lots of institutions dedicated to finding and displaying novel talent in the arts. Several alternative and artist-run spaces in the Washington area -- DCAC, Flashpoint, Transformer and others -- consider almost anything that comes over the transom. Their organizers tell me that the problem isn't a surplus of submissions; programming tends to suffer because they have too few options to choose among.

There may be a remote chance that such a person has been laboring unrecognized in a garret somewhere in Washington and that only Artomatic could have coaxed him out of hiding. But it's about as likely as finding a genius cavity-filler lurking in our dental open house.

Real, worthwhile art, the kind that says something that hasn't been said a million times before, requires carefully honed, hard-to-acquire skills -- sometimes manual, always visual and intellectual. Almost all artists worth the time of day know what's come before them, understand what's being made around them, and then -- against the odds and with terrifically hard work -- manage, every now and then, to make an art object that can contribute to the larger cultural conversation.

But somehow, over several decades now, we've bought into the nutty idea that fine art matters so very little, and is such easy stuff, that everyone and anyone can make it. (Actually, the idea has disappeared almost entirely among the kind of art professionals and intellectuals who suggested it in the first place, around the turn of the last century. The idea of art-by-anyone at first met with stiff public opposition, even ridicule; I'm only sorry it finally managed to catch on.)

For almost the entire history of Western culture, art was not conceived as something just anyone could or should make. Imagine living in Renaissance Florence and telling one of your Medici pals that you were going to have the family altarpiece painted by Joe Blow the baker, who felt like giving it a try. It would have seemed a joke. An Artomatic would have seemed sheer lunacy. Ditto if you had lived in Rembrandt's Amsterdam, Gainsborough's London or the Paris of Monet. For most of the last 500 years, dentists have been seen as less professional a bunch than artists.

Or worse. A show like Artomatic, in theory organized and stocked by lovers and supporters of fine art, is actively insulting to all the genuinely talented artists who have managed the long slog to a professional career.

You'd think that the purpose of a public exhibition would be to give the public a fair chance of seeing interesting art. Or you might think that it could serve emerging artists, too, by giving them a chance to learn from the best work that's out there. But what useful purpose is served in showing work by anyone who wants to have it seen, however awful it may be? How can an art exhibition be counted as anything other than a dismal failure when it's so bad overall?

I don't blame the people who made this work, bad as it mostly is. This is, as they say, a free country, and if someone wants to mess around with art supplies at home, then only their nearest and dearest have the right to complain. It's the basic premise of this show that is so badly at fault.

There may just be a few decent things hidden in the mix -- with so many thousands of objects on display, the law of averages says there must be. But three hours' worth of looking didn't spot too many. Some of the glasswork looked all right. (Glass is such a gorgeous medium it's hard to screw it up, and you need some basic training even to begin to work in it.) There were a few political one-liners that had some heft. But with works hung pell-mell and cheek-by-jowl in every corner of five floors of shabby rooms and corridors -- lighted by fluorescent tubes and the cheapest clip-on floods -- anything good was bound to get obscured by mediocrity. There's not even an attempt to keep like works together, or to craft oases of somewhat more polished art.

I won't dwell on the art. And I certainly won't name names. No one needs to know who made the wallfuls of amateur watercolors, yards of incompetent oil paintings, acres of trite street photography and square miles of naive installation art that will be polluting this innocent old building for the next three weeks. There's something for everyone to hate. The rest are works only a mother could love.

The result is the second-worst display of art I've ever seen. The only one to beat it out, by the thinnest of split hairs, was the 2002 Artomatic, which was worse only by virtue of being even bigger and in an even more atrocious space, down by the waterfront in a vacant modern office building.

After all, it could hardly be more excruciating than this year's Artomatic, the fourth edition of the District's creative free-for-all, which opens tomorrow. Organizers have gotten about 600 local "artists" -- anyone who could ante up the $60 fee and 15 hours of his or her time, in fact -- to display their creations. They're on show in the sprawling, scruffy building in north Capitol Hill that once housed the Capital Children's Museum and several charter schools.

I'll be at the front of the line.

Here's a fine idea. Let's find an abandoned school and then invite local dentists to ply their trade, free of charge, in its crumbling classrooms, peeling corridors and dripping toilets. Okay, so maybe we won't get practicing dentists to come, but we might get some dental students, hygienists and retirees to join in our Happy Tooth festival. What the heck, let's not be elitists here: Why don't we just invite anyone with a yen for tooth work or some skill with drills to give it a go. Then we can all line up, open wide and see what happens.

MY [Bailey's] WORDS:

Let’s not be too rough on Mr. Gopnick. Antereograde Amnesia can be terribly debilitating and frequently leads to a great deal of confusion when communicating with a person who has lost the ability to form new memories.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey

Blake Gopnik's review of Artomatic was so sensitive and insightful.

I'm looking forward to more.

What is he planning to take on next? - handicapped greeting card art? Nursing home poetry collections?

Such Diogenic wit ought not to be wasted.

Of course this is a big, sloppy, mish-mash exhibit full of trite and naive dross.

Hello! - welcome to our species.

Overwhelming mediocrity punctuated with occasional genius is our pattern in everything from art to politics. The brilliant thing about art is that it is not a finite universe where bad work pre-empts or excludes good. The human brain is not some shoe rack in danger of being filled up by one giddy splurge at Payless.

"What is the useful purpose," Gopnik asks, "of showing work by anyone who wants to have it seen?" Oh gosh, maybe something like opening up a door to a world beyond homogenized drone existence; indulging in something called a creative spirit, and suggesting that spirit is present in each of us, and with some exercise, coaxing, or just play, could possibly flourish?

Could you run that one by your exhaled committee Comrade Gopnik?

Perhaps that flourishing will only ever produce lame paintings and bad collage but is that such a threat to fine art that it ought to be so vigorously repressed?

I envision troop storming the aisles of Michael's crafts, carpet bombing Towpath painters and raiding cubicles across America to snatch away Aunt Maggie's watercolor pansies!

Does he know about knitting clubs springing up all over town?

Joe Blow the baker was not painting during the Renaissance because paper and pencil, let alone paint and canvas, were largely unavailable to the unwashed masses. It could be that four years of Artomatic have not yielded a single brilliant artist, but 400 years of European civilization have given us only a handful.

I wonder how many Reubens or Raphaels could simply never get their hands out of the kneading trough?

This is not only a grudging and mean-spirited screed, it is fundamentally wrong to suggest that a dozen Michelangelos are starving now because of the diversion of public funds to support Artomatic. How much money did the National Gallery spend to mount the current Dan Flavin show, which, in my humble, plebian opinion could have been constructed by chimps raiding the lighting department at Home Depot?

It would be great if more "established" artists would participate in Artomatic, but for whatever reason they choose not to. It would be great if more people supported more artists in general, but they don't.

It would be great if everyone in the world were supremely enlightened and shared Mr. Gopnik's exalted artistic standards, but I'll settle for the glorious mess of artistic play that results in so many people participating in a show like this.

I sincerely hope Mr. Gopnik has no children, or at least no refrigerator.

In Franklin North Carolina, there is a historical tradition with roots in emerald mines. As a tourist, you can visit, view the real veins, and then buy a bucket of dirt. Hours are spent sifting your dirt at a sleuth to find sapphire chips, and ruby specs, “salted” by the local tourist industry. Occasionally, as I did, one lucky summer day, I found a 100 plus karat sapphire.

A trip to the ’04 Art-O-Matic lent the same feeling, sifting through, and recovering great beauty. It will take several passes through the water to uncover the wealth. Starting on the 5th floor, we ran into the Glass Attic, a group of fine glass artisans; full of colors, patterns, and appeal.

Half way through the bucket, we found Stephon Senegal. I was shocked by the mortality of his sculpture. His booth is worth a second visit.

Through the journey of the veins, more goodies were found, along with nice collections of photography. Such as, Gay Cioffi, and her Glass Quilts, an excellent study of form. Along with Frank Fiorentino who produced a collection of, well, Barbie Porn; dolls in suggestive poses. I’ve seen this by other photographers at Conner Contemporary art, but less suggestive.

And then there was Thomas Edwards, Sycophant Head, and School of Fish Pain installations. The annoying slum head that follows you around the room, and the fish dying out of water. Original: The one word sums it up.

Finally, as we were pushed out for closing, I entered John Aaron’s Congressional Confessional, brilliant, with a sense of humor. I cast my vote in the journal, and chatted with John and Andrea. I’m glad to see politics roll into AOM.

15 minutes into our trip, we found our 100-karat stone. The atmosphere, and environment created by piling 1000s of artists, spectators, collectors and friends in one space with a reason to be there made the show valuable. It was, a happening.

Far from a list of ten, six stood out from a 2-hour time period through the sleuth. With more time, there will be no problem uncovering many lists of 10.

My two-cent quick and dirty reply to Jamie Wimberly - without having seen ArtOMatic but just commenting on his points (which I appreciate and mostly agree with -- It's refreshing to hear other artists also feel the same.):

1) I believe contemporary art is devalued because no one except the artist and the gallery elite are interested in it. This is not art that the masses can understand or appreciate. It's not art that even I - a person with an art degree and background - can always understand or appreciate. I believe that the lack of focus on technical and the complete focus on the concept is the downfall of contemporary art. "That's not art, I/my kid/my dog could do that" is a common response to contemporary art. For me and others there needs to be at least an appearance of skill behind the work. This puts me at odds with my professors.

2) Art schools & teaching art. I'm in a grad program and I'm being taught concept and no technical skills; the medium doesn't matter. My technical prowess doesn't matter. All that matters is the idea behind my work. I'm not being taught how to fine tune my skills to better get my message across, I'm being taught that I should feel free to drop my chosen medium and pick up anything else if I feel it can better represent what I'm trying to say - regardless of my familiarity or skill level with any other medium; this bothers me a lot. I can agree that I shouldn't feel restricted to only be a photographer, that I should use whatever is at my means and not feel restricted to try something new. But I also know that unless I invest the time and effort to learn the technical side of another medium that my crossover work would suffer from inexperience and look amateurish and sloppy.

4) Public apathy: See #1. I"m certainly not advocating creating art for the WallMart masses, but I feel that the pendulum has slipped so far to the elitist side. No one understands what they are looking at anymore, but there is a "the Emperor has no clothes!" attitude and most people are afraid to acknowledge (let alone voice out loud): Wow, that art really sucks! That's silly, that's just stupid, my dog could do that! I feel that the elitist art world needs a slap of reality and told to "get over yourself!" Also going along with #5

6 - Superstar artists. It's all about the message; doesn't matter who does the work, it's about who had the idea. My Old Skool traditional art background fights this but it is the present day attitude.

7 - Artists get laid? What a second!

And to his points about what she thinks The Art World Needs - I'd just like to say that the first two are things that I'm being taught *against* in school, especially Aesthetics. "Beauty" is a four-letter world. You aren't allowed to say that anything is "nice" or that, heavens forbid, you "like" it! The horrors! It must be visual interesting, stimulating, thought provoking, disturbing, disgusting or invoke any other such reaction but the word "Beautiful" must be avoided at all time. That Is Not Art. Too simplistic. Too easy.

P.S. About what is art and the idea that everything is art....

To quote from mainstream entertainment: "Everyone's special, Dash."

"Which is another way of saying that nobody is."

and

"And when everyone is super, no one will be." (From The Incredibles).

Also along the lines of the Kurt Vonnegut short story Harrison Bergeron - "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else."

And Ann Rynd's Fountainhead series: When everyone is special then no one is.

When everything is art then nothing is.

"Well, Sacha and Blake really stepped into it . And now I go into the void. With reluctance, I may add since I will probably get blasted for it. But I have to agree with the general criticism made by Blake. Not necessarily about the Art-O-Matic show or the pieces in it, because I actually think the Jeff Koons and Damien Hirsts' of the world are much worse, but the need for standards in art.

There is a general perception that everything is art and everybody is an artist. This thinking came out of intellectual arguments on the most central question in art - what is art? - dating from Duchamp (R. Mutt toilet) and Warhol (15 minutes of celebrity, commercial images as art given a certain context), and really before them. But the thought process has been lost and now we simply have the rotten fruit. That there is no "bad" art and every hobbyist deserves to have their work up in public. Turned on its head, logically speaking, that is the same as saying: Nothing is art and nobody is an artist. After spending oodles of money and time in art school, in the studio, hitting the streets, etc., I, as an artist, absolutely reject that notion.

Given that there does not seem to be any definition to art, a vacuum has been created. And as everyone knows, nature abhors vacuums. So, I would argue non-art values have been filling that void - celebrity, propaganda, political correctness, marketing, corporate affiliations, art as commodity, shock/ outrageousness/ spectacle, or in the case of many of the respondents so far, a chance to party, to name a few. There are very real consequences to this state of affairs, including but not limited to:

1) Art - all contemporary art at least - gets somewhat devalued. And it is very hard - almost impossible - to make a living as an artist. Contrary to the depiction of galleries as ogres with their 30 to 50 percent commission structures, I would add that most galleries as well are struggling mightily. I would not want to be in that business.

2) Art schools have virtually stopped teaching art.

3) True patrons are an increasing rare breed. There are simply buyers of art.

4) Public support for spending on art is scarce due to public boredom/ disgust what is being purveyed as art, so companies are increasingly relied on for funding/ buying art with their own agendas.

5) Criticism - especially strong criticism - does not occur. And when it does, as with the case of Blake's piece, it is declared "elitist" and less likely to be repeated.

6) Superstar artists have become producers and do not actually touch the work themselves. They direct or design.

7) Art has become an excuse and platform - as therapy, to get laid, to party, to become a celebrity, etc.

8) Art has become a marketing exercise with as a commodity to market around.

I could go on. But I wonder what kind of legacy we are leaving in regard to art of this generation. What can be considered "important" art - which, to me, means what will influence future generations? Not much, I am afraid.

I would argue that there is a clear need for standards in art - not in regards to medium (with the conceit that "painting is dead"), or style, or substance/ content. But there needs to be a new/ old way of evaluating art. I offer four suggested standards:

1) Craftsmanship - How well is the piece made? Is it archival? Does the artist show mastery of their chosen medium? Most art today is sloppy and falling apart.

2) Aesthetics/ Beauty - Does this artist deal with the question of beauty in the work - even if the piece is intended to be off-center or even ugly? This is particularly important in regard to painting. Art today is oftentimes willfully ignorant of aesthetics.

3) Spirituality - What I mean here is what Kandinsky referred to as spirituality in art. Does the artist put something of themselves in the work? Does the work have essence? Art today can be awfully sterile.

4) Influences/ History - It is important to know what preceded you. What/ who influenced the work? What is the work trying to contribute? Traditionally, with guilds, a long apprenticeship was required before an individual artist would even be allowed to put that one touch or flourish that was their signature mark. Today's art seems to be very post modern in orientation - trashing history to always be creating the "new new". This is a race to the bottom.

Finally, I would add the all important ingredients of artistic success: hard work, discipline, talent, striving for excellence and luck.

Not everyone is an artist, and not everything is art.

Jamie Wimberly

"I'm sorry - I simply don't believe in the hierarchical theories of art criticism. Like a lot of the social sciences, it is mainly BS. Good art speaks for itself, and I believe art critics should talk more about artwork and less about their BS theories and trying to predict what art historians will theorize about in 50 years."

In view of Blake Gopnik's overarching dental school analogy, I thought this quote from the Washington Blade article was pretty humorous:

"This is the first major exhibition for gay painter Fortunato “Forty” Dela Cruz, who is finishing his art degree part time at University of Maryland, University College, while working full-time as a dental lab technician."

Maybe Blake was on to something . . ."

"The gay magazine Out has included glass sculptor Tim Tate on its annual "Out 100" list of notable people. Tate, a founder and co-director of the Washington Glass School, was named an Outstanding Emerging Artist earlier this year at the Mayor's Arts Awards. He joins a mix of established and rising figures in the visual arts section of the "Out 100" -- including pop art icon David Hockney, sexually provocative photographer Anthony Goicolea and Korean interdisciplinary artist Erica Cho."

"Ever since the gallery’s Oct. 3 opening of “Dan Flavin: A Retrospective,” staffers watching over the sprawling display of 44 illuminated works by the fluorescent-tube-obsessed minimalist have complained of headaches, anxiety, and nervousness—all allegedly brought on by excessive wattage. A combined 48,600 watts, to be exact. One staffer is said to have passed out."

Twombly over Picasso? The National Gallery of Art's latest acquisition of an exceedingly boring painting by Virginia painter Cy Twombly succinctly brings to light a perfect example of the sort of poor decisions made in the seclusion of museum walls which exemplify why the general public is often at odds with our arts intelligentsia.

Cy Twombly's "Untitled (Bolsena)" was acquired on Friday the 13th of October by the National Gallery of Art at a cost of about one million dollars. The gallery's Collector's Committee also considered a Picasso, a Giacometti and a Baselitz before choosing the Twombly painting, which was aptly described by Washington Post art critic Paul Richards as "evoking the butt-end days of New York action painting. Or a wall besides a public pay phone."

Although it is clear that the Twombly piece will now join the National Gallery's ever growing "Gee, Mom, I can do that!" collection of art, what isn't clear is the rationale for picking Twombly over Picasso or Giacometti. It has been said that Twombly's main claim to fame is his early associations with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; if this is his main springboard into the walls of the National gallery, then it is clear to me that a pathetic mistake has been made by the gallery's Collectors Committee. As a matter of fact one would be hard pressed to pick a Johns or a Rauschenberg over a Picasso!

A new Picasso acquisition would have brought the National Gallery some more public interest, and a price tag of a million dollars seems almost a bargain for perhaps the greatest painter of all time. Whatever his detractors, Picasso is a recognized entity which would attract people who both like and dislike his work. I suspect Twombly's "champions" are not enough to prevent this latest acquisition from being ridiculed by the public and dismissed by the critics.

It is also clear that the piece was vastly overpriced, as a similar Twombly sold less than two weeks ago in New York for $167,000. It would be interesting to see in which basement of the National Gallery this scrawling will gather dust in a few years. When it is put into storage, I hope it is well marked as a piece of art, or it may accidentally resurface on a wall next to a pay phone at the Smithsonian Metro Station.

Another Saint in the art world has given his life in the pure pursuit of his art.

Yesterday's savage and brutal murder in Amsterdam of filmmaker Theo van Gogh represents another direct assault by extremists on the universal concept of freedom of artistic expression.

The first line of protection that an artist, photographer, curator, musician, singer, dancer, choreographer or any other person involved in the arts enjoys in support of their art, is acceptance within the art world of the basic principles of freedom of artistic expression.

It is absolutely critical that every person in the arts, and more importantly, that every arts organization on the planet, subscribe to and advocate for a consistent definition of freedom of artistic expression that applies equally to every single artist.

Every voice in the art world needs to speak out condemning the slaughter of Theo van Gogh.

Every voice in the art world also needs to speak with clarity, firmness and resolve in support of a universally accepted definition of freedom of artist expression for every artist in this world.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey
Experimental Photographer