Seattle is the center of the fine arts glass universe. It is appropriate that an intellectual battle of words involving the world's most famous glass artist has been going on around the blogs and newspapers of that beautiful city, so dear and near to my heart. “Circular Ccriticism,” or as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's eloquent art critic Regina Hackett calls it, "Prizes in Hypocrisy" is a very good story on two newspapers first trashing an artist on a particular point and then later taking the other viewpoint.
First she recalls (through the writing of Trevor Fairbrother's 1996 essay about the collaborative paintings of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat) the New York Times critical drubbing of the Basquiat and Warhol art collaborations.
“Writing there in 1984, Vivian Raynor observed that Basquiat might turn into a substantial artist if he doesn't become an ‘art-world mascot.’ A year later, reviewing the Basquiat-Warhol collaboration, she repeated the mascot charge and added that the jointly produced paintings were Warhol manipulations with Basquiat as the ‘all too willing accessory.’)
Wounded, Basquiat distanced himself from Warhol, who had functioned as an anchor for the younger artist. After Basquiat's death at age 27 in 1988, the same New York Times called him a "genius" who unfortunately had cooled his relationship with his mentor "partly out of fear that he was being viewed as Mr. Warhol's mascot."
Then Hackett brings to national attention the fact that the Seattle Times , in 2006, wrote a three part series focused on Dale Chihuly by Sheila Farr (the Times art critic) and Susan Kelleher (in which Chihuly's work process is compared to Thomas Kinkade's).
“If we measure an artist's importance by the number of museum exhibitions, books, articles and television appearances he has, Seattle glass guru Dale Chihuly is right up there with the greats. His work is in the collection of most every U.S. art museum you can think of, as well as many abroad. Museum exhibitions of his work circulate continually and stacks of hefty coffee-table books praise his talents. And who hasn't seen one of those often-aired documentaries about him on PBS?
But what many don't know is that Chihuly — a Northwest icon who has built a multimillion-dollar business — generates the bulk of that exposure himself. Most of those hugely popular exhibitions weren't organized and distributed by art museums, but by Chihuly Inc. And those books and television shows? Most of them were produced by Chihuly's publishing company, Portland Press. All that publicity has inflated the public notion of Chihuly's status in the art world.”
Article comments
1 - Doyle LaCount
While Regina Hackett was getting her talking points faxed directly from the Chihuly Boathouse Farr and Kelleher over at the Seattle Times, inundated with evidence of a legacy built entirely on deception, were struggling with how to report on it without their critics over at the PI hissing that they were biased or at the very least insane.
The Seattle Times clearly pulled punches and apparently did so as the result of the implied threats emerging from the Chihuly counsel. The mere fact Chihuly may have fudged a bit in his self promotion should not distract the public from the astounding level of consumer fraud Chihuly Studio and Portland press have engaged in. If you doubt this then visit my site and if you can disprove one accusation I will take the site down. That challenge has been posted for 2 years without a single taker.
2 - Doyle LaCount
You can read the story and examine the evidence that the Seattle Times based their 3 part story on at my website www.chihulyscrewedyou.com . It was my investigation that inspired Susan Kelleher to report on the nefarious activity over at Chihuly Studio.
The so called "War of Words" is actually a distraction from the eveidence that criminal consumer fraud was the business de jour of Chihuly Studio.