It is difficult for us to understand how an art critic in the course of supposedly constructing a history for artworks he is critiquing could make such banal references to works by Rauschenberg, Johns, Warhol and the Constructivists. In his review, Christopher Knight boils these artists and movements down to uninteresting one-dimensional phenomena so that he can use them to critique Christopher Wool’s work—but those artists and movements are not what Knight portrays them as at all.

Should an art critic actually state that “Flowers silk-screened atop flowers” is all that is happening in Warhol’s work? Even in the so-called approved interpretations of Warhol and the other artists that Knight cites they are allowed their complexity. Knight denies the visual in Wool’s work, and the only reason anyone in their right mind would portray so many and such disparate works of art in such a ridiculous manner would be to deny that there is anything visual in them as well. If Knight thinks that a Rauschenberg is only about painting technique then he has never looked at one and he doesn’t deserve to be an art critic. Russian Constructivism is not about black and white (and is certainly not a 60’s phenomena) where did Mr. Knight study art history? The characterizations of other art that he employs to make his criticisms of Wool’s painting are so wrong and plainly uneducated that clearly his primary goal is to make his point at any expense, even at the expense of simple historical fact. What is his point? Why does he feel so compelled to say nasty things about Wool’s painting and Goldstein’s curating? Well part of the answer might lie in the recent history of the Times art pages.

Over the course of the past few years, Christopher Knight and his cronies at the Times have gradually exchanged art criticism for character assassination. It has become a paper where writers are paid not to discuss issues in art but to engage regularly in anti-intellectualism and red-baiting. All issues which are mulled over by the “mandarin theorists at October Magazine” are deemed “conceptual” and therefore not worthy of being addressed. In recent reviews of exhibitions by Wool, LA artist Larry Johnson and Vancouver artist Roy Arden, Times writers have attacked the artists as representatives of unnamed institutions and unspecified academies as well as Marxists and intellectuals. Like Joe McCarthy waving his little list Knight and his lapdogs wave their paper and demand; “Down with academics!” “Down with theorists!” “Down with art about language” and more insidiously “Down with female curators”—when we note that Knight’s nastiest remarks are always reserved for the work of female curators such as Goldstein, Amelia Jones and Documenta curator Catherine David.

Christopher Knight and his fellow writers appear to be soldiers for the right wing whose weapons are the willful misreading of art history along with the tired tactics of anti-intellectualism. What more could a corporation desire in a propagandist than a man who promotes decorative art while simultaneously imagining “mandarin theorists” behind every tree waiting to leap out and whack him on the head with a copy of “Das Kapital”? Charges of conservatism leveled by those who have chosen to make their livings as corporate lackeys strike us as sad and funny.

It is not however sad or funny that Mr. Knight’s apparent goal is to drive visitors and supporters away from the Museum of Contemporary Art with his mocking of the museums’ desire to have Wool’s work represented in their collection. It is in this negative ambition that the true ugliness of Knight’s character emerges and his ultimate disdain for readers of the Times is revealed in all its patronizing glory.

Christopher Knight does not want to participate in a dialogue about art with artists, curators and museum goers. Instead he fears that visitors to the museum will be duped by the sham he claims has been perpetrated within. Does he believe that they will be convinced of some false history or bad liberal ideas once they enter the doors? He must, because he clearly believes that they are gullible enough to be convinced by his own re-writing of art history and straw man arguments. Consequently, Mr. Knight has displayed for some time nothing other than sneering disdain for his readers as well as for artists and curators. Because of this, he comes off week after week as a bitter, mean man whose vague swats at mysterious institutions, academies and theorists become more pathetic as his intentions become more apparent.

By the way, we are two of the artists who were represented in the Pure Beauty exhibition and are happy to be placed in the same cell to which Knight and his fellow Times critics have banished Chris Wool, Larry Johnson, Roy Arden and a host of other artists as well as almost every female curator in LA. Oh, and we wear glasses too!

Sincerely,
T. Kelly Mason
Diana Thater