‘Hotter’ Review Provokes Two Steamed Reactions : False Assumptions Flaw Criticism

I was outraged by David Pagel’s poorly researched review of the “Hotter Than July” show at Margo Leavin Gallery (Art Reviews, Calendar, Aug. 8). Simply put, Pagel’s review misinforms The Times readership by incorrectly describing “Hotter Than July” as “a group show of photographs, etchings and videotaped films by five gay black men [that] makes being gay, black and male look boring. . . . The only thing hot about this exhibition is its topic.”

Pagel is surely mistaken. Although some of the artists in the show would use the term gay as one adjective in describing themselves, “Hotter Than July” was never conceived of as a show about “gay black men.” Instead, it is a show that brings together five international artists who work in narrative and whose work has been in dialogue with one another over the last five to 10 years (and in the case of Lyle Ashton Harris and myself, over 30 years). I would suggest that it is Pagel’s own real or imagined investment in categorizing the supposed race, sexual orientation and gender of the artists that led to his disappointment with the show.

While it is not critical that everyone understand the show’s premise (as this would result in a didacticism that better fits with propaganda than art), one would hope that it is the job of a journalist to see beyond his own projections. Throughout the article, Pagel continually falls victim to his faulty assumptions: “They appear to be so eager to fit into a specialized niche that they refrain from challenging individual viewers with interesting ideas about what art’s relationship to being black, gay and male might be.”

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In fact, the category of “black male” itself reduces the specificity of ethnicity of artists whose nationalities include American, European, Caribbean and African. Furthermore, Pagel’s reductive essentializing into facile categories dismisses and renders invisible a host of subjectivities in the exhibition--including, most importantly, the women who figure prominently in my own work as well as that of Lyle Ashton Harris and Ike Ude.

In addressing the show’s award-winning films and videotapes, Pagel unashamedly offers: “The films falter because they are based on the assumption that art’s primary purpose is to articulate an artist’s identity.” Pagel so casually dismisses the exhibition’s films and videotapes, it makes me wonder how much of the three hours he viewed. What is further upsetting is that he feels free to flaunt his ignorance and pass it on to The Times readership.

The work of renowned British filmmaker Isaac Julien has played and continues to play a tremendous role in reshaping narrative, documentary and experimental cinema and video practice across the world. Julien’s 1989 film, “Looking for Langston,” is a meditation on one of America’s most celebrated poets and writers, Langston Hughes. The film is a recognized classic of international reputation and has been widely written on by such noted scholars as Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates.

My 1995 documentary feature, “VINTAGE*Families of Value,” was described as “one of the most surprising and honest films about black life in years” by the Toronto International Film Festival where it made its world premiere. An exploration of three African American families through the eyes of lesbian and gay siblings, “VINTAGE” has received two awards, screened internationally and has received critical acclaim, including a Los Angeles Times review on May 6 of this year by Kevin Thomas, which describes “VINTAGE” as “a beautiful heartfelt film with a tonic effect.”

In the first week of the show, the Margo Leavin Gallery had so many calls requesting to screen “VINTAGE” that it increased the number of showings from four to 10 per week. That Pagel can have the gall to dismiss two such important films in two lines of banal commentary is astounding.