Friday, March 26, 2010

Mellema on Lin

"It's hard to argue with the notion that Amy Lin gets more press coverage than any other artist in the greater Metro area."
That's the beginning of a most excellent review by Kevin Mellema of the Amy Lin show currently at Addison Ripley in Georgetown. Read the whole review here. Mellema is right, Lin has received tons of press and critical attention in her past and current exhibitions.

It's also hard to argue with the puzzling fact that so far the Washington Post's Jessica Dawson, whose job is to write about DC area galleries, is one of the rare important critical voices who has so far managed to avoid writing anything about this artist. Lin has managed to capture the attention of nearly every art critic and writer in the region but Dawson's.

Says something about having a "finger on the pulse of the DC art scene" doesn't it?

I really hope that Dawson proves me wrong and plans to review this current Lin show and bring one of the District's top visual arts voices to the attention of the WaPo's readers.

On the other hand, me bitching about Jessica's review choices (or lack thereof) could result in a permanent poisoning of the well and guarantee that Dawson will black list Lin forever.

Still on yet another hand, in 100 years no one will know who Jessica Dawson was, but Amy Lin's artworks will still be around and being enjoyed for centuries to come.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really? Centuries? seems way too lightweight for that....

Lenny said...

Really.

According to research, most artwork, once framed and sold, has a 80% probability of surviving 100 years and a 75% probability of surviving 150 years, and so on proportionally.

Any artwork...

Anonymous said...

They used to say that Rothko's work was 'lightweight' too...

Adrienne Mills said...

Go easy on Dawson. Who would we have to complain about if she had her finger on the pulse? Why should she review an artist everyone else reviewed? Could you really say her finger was on the pulse if she did something on Lin at this late date? WAPO gets a lot of mileage from the constant complaints of artists. Why would they change a formula that works so well?

Anonymous said...

Venkatesh Rao has an interesting take on Amy Lin's work and this concept of the Ancient Eye:

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/03/23/amy-lin-and-the-ancient-eye/