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Loraine Stephanson's avatar

How totally sad, these gratuitous trashings of Michael Fried.

Fried was a guest critic for the entire two weeks of Triangle NY, Pine Plains, in the summer of 1986. A multidimensional, incisive intellect (with a great sense of humor as well). I remember him with fondness, and read his poetry from time to time in his sensitive, intense collection "To the Center of the Earth".

Thank you for your article.

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Patrick Garner's avatar

Thank you. Strong, brave, incisive.

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SlowlyReading's avatar

This world is so depressing sometimes (the world in general, but most especially the art world). As such, Dissident Muse Journal is a ray of hope. May its strength and days increase!

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Elizabeth Snelling's avatar

From today forward I shallt not describe a person as a ‘weanie ’.

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Franklin Einspruch's avatar

I don't know it's pretty lol

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Jack Miamensis's avatar

I expect that Robbins saw an opportunity in that old letter which, however dubious, she couldn't pass up--and boy did she milk it. Of course, given the prevailing tenor in her milieu, what she did could have been considered a no-brainer, if not downright de rigueur.

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Jack Miamensis's avatar

As for the term faggot, there are gay men who currently identify as such, which (like their sexuality) is their business. I understand the unabashedly gay Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas, the subject of the film "Before Night Falls," used the Spanish version of that term (maricón) as essentially a figure of speech. Also, 1967 was obviously not 2018, not even close.

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Franklin Einspruch's avatar

Also self-identification is an entirely different phenomenon than using the term as an insult. I'm not defending Fried's word choice. But canceling an exhibition over this particular instance of it is trashy.

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Jack Miamensis's avatar

I wouldn't call it trashy, exactly--more like an opportunistic power trip, not to mention an inexcusable willingness to seriously screw someone over (Kahng) on a very flimsy pretext (though I expect there was more to it than that, albeit still highly questionable).

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SlowlyReading's avatar

Also, I truly have trouble believing that the "f-----" word is now really unacceptable. Really? I can't imagine normal sane reasonable gay guys like Dan Savage or Andrew Sullivan having conniptions over the use of this word. They'd probably laugh and appreciate it.

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Franklin Einspruch's avatar

You can see from Robbins that there was already a long trend in place of characterizing modernism in the worst terms possible, so the pearl-clutching at "faggot" was entirely opportunistic. I wouldn't call someone that out of irritation. That said, are you familiar with Black Fag? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8SQCFmB3mM

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Jack Miamensis's avatar

Ah, but there is toxic, and then there's fashionably toxic. The latter, like any sort of fashionable intolerance, inequity/iniquity, exclusion or racism is not only condoned but promoted and rewarded, at least within "correct" circles. Perversity is not so prevalent for nothing--it never is.

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