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Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts Michelle Marder Kamhi. New York: Pro Arte Books, 2014, 323 pp. $16
Forty years ago, I picked up a hitchhiker, a minor figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. He invited me to his studio where he discoursed on the intricacies of a work under construction, a small painting that sat on an easel. It was a typical messy agglomeration of overlapping paints of different gloomy colors. It probably made me queasy. If you would like to see for yourself, visit the Whitney, which holds some of his creations. Many years after this incident, I picked up another traveler. He too was an Abstract Expressionist. This time, I asked him point blank if he thought that the movement is a hoax; he immediately replied in the affirmative.
Not everything in the natural and constructed world can be considered art, just as not everything in the universe is craft or literature or music. A thinking person must be able to differentiate, create taxonomies, and place things where they naturally and logically belong. A copperhead is not a bird and a kangaroo is not an arthropod. Taxonomy matters. Distortion is (intellectually) harmful. And those who participate as creators or viewers or readers or listeners must also be able to make value judgments concerning the quality of the work. That is why Who Says That's Art? is so important and useful. Ironically, it will be well received by the layman, who probably already agrees with its premise; those who really could benefit-the artists, collectors, curators, and especially the critics (the heirs of Clement Greenberg, who ultimately changed his mind, long after the damage was done)-will scoff and cite imagined esthetic nuances and the 50 million dollar auction price for a typical Rothko abomination. These people have lost the ability to think.
This study attempts to answer a question concerning certain human creative productions, but it is concomitantly, at least in part, a harsh critique of a bizarre cultural development, a perverse anomaly that took hold in the early 20th century and continues to confuse and harm. It also discusses, comments on, or criticizes many ancillary attitudes, developments, and personages including the great 19th century collectors, critics, curators, and...