We attended your event and were pleased to see something of this nature well received by the public. I think the "critic" could have been more aggressive towards the various pieces/artists, as opposed to allowing the audience to (for the most part) to take over; the ref should have intervened with reminders of what the objectives were in terms of cage match antics. I think the form itself has a lot of possibilities for public exchange and theater and I believe that can happen through moving into a more public setting; instead of the modernist structure of the gallery. Anyways; I salute you and David White for making this happening.

Larry

This event needed more theater of the cage match; makes sense within this modernist platform; it's hard to move beyond the gallery space, even with public activity. Even with a different idea in form the work was subject to simular constraints; I like to see David White move something like this to a more public venue and see what purpose that discourse might serve. Non- the less, thank you David for an interesting (best of outcomes) evening.

Larry

Larry,

Thank you for your comments. I agree that both David and myself could have been a bit more agressive in our interventions, however, the premise (perhaps this could have been explained more clearly), was to break down the pre-ordained role of critic and to some extent, of the artist. The hope was to bring a little bit more insight and transparency to the process of "selection" (the artist who selects work for a show and the critic who determines whether or not, for argument's sake, the work is good, bad, successful etc.) and the decisions that go into it - right or wrong.

It was more about bringing the dialogue out into the open, before the public, and to let them decide if what the artist or critic had to say, was accurate or relevant to what was being shown. And while, the work by Joe Yorty and Claire Zitzow, was for me, weak in concept and execution, it wasn't (I felt) my role to tear the work down. Besides, the audience had their own take on the work, far different from mine. I found within all the critiques, something positive about each of them, that I accepted as valid, and could otherwise, forget about the quality of the oeuvre being shown. Example, I thought what Joe and Claire had to say, their ideas, impetus for making the work, desires, failures etc., we're for the most part genuine. I didn't necessairly like the work, but it didn't matter at that point. I got something out of it.

I believe, most critics, will sink their teeth into something that is problematic for them, irritates them or whatever, and will move on over work that is less so - finding something redeemable but not always memorable.

Finally, the cage "tapout" idea was just a departure, a spoof of sorts on the whole current infatuation with actual cage fighting. I believe there were enough elements in the show that clearly alluded to this - the barrier, referee, "Rocky" theme music - that were enough to reference the sport and not try to copy it. The goal was to move past it and while it was still held within a gallery, I felt several times during the evening, that the gallery disappeared entirely, becoming more and more of a public "sporting" event. I feel like you do Larry, that this event has a lot of potential to move out into the public as theater and as general public discourse about the arts, it was I believe, a solid first step.