Village Voice art critic Jerry Saltz has introduced a new standard to critical argument, the "I couldn't do it" standard. Here's an excerpt from his review of James Siena in the Voice/artnet this week:
Two weeks after seeing Siena's show, aided by notes and sketches made there, and consulting the gallery's handy website, where all the drawings are pictured, I got some paper and colored pencils, and set out to reproduce a number of Siena's drawings. Gradually, as I either couldn't finish, lost my concentration, got mixed up, was unable to make things fit, or simply produced ugly renditions of what I was looking at, I grasped how much commitment and focus is necessary to make these little drawings and how incisive Siena's mind is.
I'm really looking forward to seeing this criterion applied in future reviews, e.g., Velazquez ("the lifelike rendering was a snap, but who has time to grind pigments anymore?"), Malevich ("after a hundred attempts I gave up trying to match those two whites"), and Piero Manzoni ("crapping was easy, but working with the canning company proved surprisingly complicated.")

- tom moody 7-08-2003 7:45 pm
back to Tom Moody

Yeah, I read the Jerry Saltz article too. I wept.
- anonymous (guest) 7-10-2003 2:45 pm


I tried to weep, but found it was much harder to do than I had expected, lost my concentration and....
- bruno 7-11-2003 9:23 pm


It turns out I can paint a Barnett Newman, I just didn't think of it before he did...
- alex 7-11-2003 11:39 pm





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