Critical Comments

In his April 10 review, David Pagel invalidates Roy Arden’s photography because Arden is an academic (so his activism doesn’t count) and because his pictures are a commodity (as if they are only that).

This is typical of a certain genre of art criticism that neutralizes artwork by attacking it simultaneously from the right and from the left, so to speak: It’s not original enough; it’s too stylish, well made and successfully shown in a gallery; it is also condemned for not being accessible enough to the masses; it’s too designer-Marxist (i.e., not really Marxist), yet it is blamed for failing to topple capitalism. Too much, and also not enough.

ANNETTA KAPON

Los Angeles

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Thank you for the review of my exhibition at Patrick Painter Inc. I was especially pleased by David Pagel’s noting of the “skilled labor and technical prowess that go into the production” of my “masterfully crafted photographs.”

I was also moved by his critical comments, which I have taken to heart. L.A. is fortunate to have a journalist who cares about those simple people he refers to as “general viewers.” These common folk have suffered long and hard under the oppressive yolk of realist art. They have never understood these dazzling and confusing images of the world around them. This tyranny can be traced back to that scurrilous hypocrite Courbet. Apparently, he sold his elitist pictures as well.

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Luckily, the “general viewers” have your journalist protecting them from the “academic Marxists” who are behind all this. While I am not sure if I am a Marxist academic, the scales have now fallen from my eyes; it’s clear I’ve come under their hypnotic spell. Finally, I have a confession to make: I am also a bisexual, and I wear glasses. While your journalist mercifully failed to perceive this from looking at my “masterfully crafted photographs,” his display of McCarthy-like courage has given me the strength to openly deal with my transgressions.

ROY ARDEN

Vancouver