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Eighth-Graders Get Really Mean 9/11 Art Review
Viewed through the unripe eyes of Calhoun’s 13-year-olds, the collapse of the Twin Towers might have been a natural disaster. Captions tell us that the “The loss was sudden and great”; “Smoke and dust were everywhere”; and “The streets were empty.” For all the project’s pretense to chronicle, nothing indicates why. “People donated blood.” So? Blood drives are commonplace. “The people were afraid.” But of what? Yes, “people still miss the Twin Towers.” But why are they gone? Did they just fall down of their own accord? Might their destruction have had something to do with the lethal ideology of Islamist jihadists? Or with Islam’s theological imperative toward war with the infidel and the religiously sanctioned violence of classic Islamic jurisprudence? The display keeps mum on the critical matter of responsibility.
— 9/11: Through Young Eyes is on view through October 8, 2011, at DC Moore Gallery in West Chelsea. The exhibition consists of work made in 2001 by an eighth grade class at the Calhoun School, after seeing an exhibition by Jacob Lawrence at the Whitney (oh and, I guess, also the devastation of downtown). It is also, according to this absolutely scathing review, a heaping pile of ahistorical garbage. Also: "An oddly truncated exercise in sanitized storytelling that sacrifices historical understanding to a bien pensant avoidance of the obvious." HAHA WOW.
Maddox did it better.
the best page in the universe
yes, if i had one wish for today's children, it would be that their understanding of theological jurisprudence be deeper, more nuanced. Because all of the world's other problems have been solved and this is the only one left.
Now I've seen everything — an art critic named Mullarkey.
Never fear, art critics! In 10 or 15 years, at least a few of those kids will take a few art history and semiotics courses and then be able to talk bullshit with the best of you.
I can't believe Mullarkey was paid to write an art review. What a waste of art jargon on kids! There's other, valid ways to talk about 9/11 art. This review shows one art critic's distance from what's considered important by an art public in general – because no one else, curators, critics, writers, artists, etcetera, thinks it's important to waste time berating kids' art.
Geez, what a dick.
@GailPink: Christ, what an asshole.
@laurel I was referring to the critic.
@GailPink It's a reference to cartoons in The New Yorker.
"bien pensant avoidance of the obvious" gets you a timeout in THIS house!
"And would it kill these kids to learn a little something about perspective and spatial relationships?"
I'll bet he prefers Breughel the Elder.
@HiredGoons: Step back.
This is what happens when even a single conservative gains a shred of credibility in the art world. Don't let this happen again, art-people.
i wonder what he has on his refrigerator.
I did not know that "then, as now—Jews are the preferred target of bias crimes." Did I miss a vote?
@TennisCourtOaf I prefer transpeople, myself, but to each his own!
@linernotesdanny (I'M TOTALLY KIDDING, PLEASE PROTECT TRANSPEOPLE, EVERYONE)
RUN, CHILDREN. This guy is clearly not afraid to use enhanced interrogation techniques on a 5-year-old.
@Aatom: Watercolorboarding.
Calhoun is notorious for its shallowness. They toss around words like "empathy" and "diversity" as if they somehow substitute for real teaching and engaged students. It's more a North Korean "re-education" operation than a school. I had two kids there for years, and watched its decline from a pretty good school into a citywide joke.
"Commemorating 9/ll by means of children’s artwork sentimentalizes the event and allows us to avoid calling the events of that day acts of war. 9/11: Through Young Eyes severs its subject from the only thing by which it can be measured and understood: historical context."
Whether you agree with her or not Ms. Mullarkey seems to be very clear about her point concerning the exhibition, as shown in the first paragraph of her post copied above. Mr. Sicha's characterization of it as being a "really mean review" is at about the same intellectual level of an eighth grader's claim that 9/11 was "a really bad thing". As to whether Sicha's claim shows the depth of his understanding of Mullarkey's point and the extent of his descriptive capabilities or is merely him being disingenuous is up to the reader to decide.