LETTER TO THE INQUIRER ART CRITIC!

Ed,

Your review of the Delaware Show featuring art as appropriation is fair enough but your bias is way off as indicated by your careful and instructive use of the words; "theft, copying, borrowing and image piracy." If I may contribute; all that sort of art is a proposition about the nature of art. You make Warhol sound like some hack! People still borrow ideas from him (and Duchamp) because they are simply, still relevant!

I was going to let it slide, but you followed with the inevitable review of a book of letters by Thomas Eakins, as if to imply that he is the "original" sort of artist we need these days. What century are your readers living in? The only important fact about Eakins is not his so called, "realism," but his managing to work in the gap between painting's discreditation as art while photography became instrumental. Furthermore touting him constantly as a historical mentor for this modern city is just plain crass and does nothing to educate younger art audiences.

Yours is Frustration,

James Rosenthal
Senior Lecturer of Art History
University of the Arts