Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« I, Anonymous: It's Elementary—... | Today The Stranger Suggests... »

Friday, June 29, 2007

Regina On Jen On SBC, Take 55

posted by on June 29 at 11:04 AM

It’s always good entertainment when critics get passionate about something they haven’t seen. Rudy Giuliani, meet Regina Hackett. She’s your kind of girl.

The truth is, on a deep level, critics love criticism. And Regina keeps it coming to me.

This time, she’s so irritated with me for panning SuttonBeresCuller’s recent performance—which happened while she was out of town—that she takes the opportunity to slam me (once again) on her blog. (My review of the performance first appeared in longer form on Slog.)

First, she says, I don’t know criticism from insults. This from the critic who wrote, in direct retort to Sheila Farr (who’d gotten an exclusive preview and written an incisive review of Paul Allen’s art collection that made Regina’s review look late and weak in comparison): “Those who think the container cancels out the pleasures of the art contained need a checkup from the neck up.” That sentence still cracks me up.

(My other favorite Hackettism was her blog post about my being wrong in my criticism of SBC’s boat in the biennial at Tacoma Art Museum. She cited the responses of local critics to the work—questioning the credibility of one of those critics along the way—and decided that the vote was in: 2 out of 3 critics say the boat is good, so it must be! Take that, Graves!)

In this latest case, it’s not just that I don’t know from criticism. It’s also that I don’t know from genius. Because I question the quality of recent work by SBC, I would also have hated John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Morris Graves back when they were enlivening Seattle. Because—to quote once again from the review Regina wrote in 2005—John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler are the reincarnation of Cage, Cunningham, and Graves.

Welcome back, Regina. I could spend all day trading barbs with you, it’s so much fun. But I have to get back to the business of criticizing art rather than another critic—until next time, that is. See you on the flip side of another battle, lady.

RSS icon Comments

1

Psh, you should kick her fucking ass.

Posted by Mr. Poe | June 29, 2007 11:17 AM
2

Heh. "Checkup from the neck up," is my new favorite phrase—replacing "skunky lobster-pot" from yesterday's Vagisil commercial post comments.

Posted by Carollani | June 29, 2007 11:20 AM
3

Ooh, so some hot girl on girl action.

Posted by ljg | June 29, 2007 11:27 AM
4

"Check up from the neck up"? That' hot. You should totally get back at her with "up your nose with a rubber hose". Or maybe a "yo mamma so fat, when she blows her nose her hanky fulla gravy".

Posted by Fnarf | June 29, 2007 11:30 AM
5

you neglected to mention that in the same 2005 article, she compared SBC to Kurt Cobain.

Posted by cochise. | June 29, 2007 12:20 PM
6

maybe the reason SBC's work has gotten flaccid is because local art critics have been teabagging them over frat-boy pranks for the past year.

Posted by abab | June 29, 2007 12:53 PM
7

>she takes the opportunity to slam : easy, now. Critics getting a taste of their own medicine ought to roll it around on their tongue a bit before swallowing it whole ...

Posted by donar09 | July 2, 2007 3:35 PM
8

neither of you is covering yourself in glory with this petty back and forth. write about art and leave each other out of it

Posted by paul urla | July 2, 2007 4:18 PM
9

qjkwiez abpwsx vjnyc xwume bepqao djnxwp bnega

Posted by fhyagw crwalsov | July 8, 2007 10:41 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).