[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 62, Issue 12

[John Haber]

Johanna did a great job of cutting through the garbage.  Part of me is 
uneasy with dissing on academia, since I'm surrounded by people blaming 
"theory" for all that goes wrong in art, and I spend much of my time 
arguing with that.  Still, it's good to hold everyone to higher standards. 

Thus, with trepidation, could I argue with Michel Angelo?  On the one 
hand, I'd worry he lets us off too easy.  Things really are slimy, 
honest.  I'm working now on a review of an intriguing show at James 
Cohan of well-known artists asked to work in the medium of tapestry.  
It's a great idea, allowing for a fancy gallery to work with established 
artists in a genre associated with commercial art or folk art.  Or even 
with pre-Renaissance art history.  It has some very dark work and 
artists as valuable to anyone's future in the arts, issues of gender and 
race included, as Kara Walker.  But it turns out that the anonymous 
collective behind it all is something called 'the Rug Company.'  This 
should keep me busy writing tomorrow. 

Conversely, his strategies seem awfully mild to me. 

John