It's when I look at it and write about it a lot that it becomes junk++.

I just don't think the realized work is that striking.

And I don't think mental gymnastics -- even perfect 10's -- are art.

For me, these pieces are like overwrought French entrees in some grand hotel restaurant in Europe begging to be appreciated for their parts but falling short of a sum; like Soviet grandees on Lenin's tomb, medal bedecked...or, as the Emporer said in Mozart, "Too many notes." I make my point, n'est pas?

I'm not averse to nutty shit. Hell, I've got a Charles Krafft plate that may have human bone mixed into the ceramic...I haven't wanted to ask.

But, like using every crayon in the 64-count box, it just becomes a muddle.

God knows there are people out there who feel this art is exceptional. I am glad for them and would be very interested in hearing their points for approbation.

If so, stop reading, as there is no hope for you.

If not, go see the show and realize, just as every note was there for a reason on Mozart's page, the sums of Robleto's parts will cripple you with their underlying themes of love, loss, history, meditations on and ramifications of war, the earnestness of his inquiry, and the poetry and precision of his selections.

So very far from simply "nutty."

It's only "mental gymnastics" if you think reflecting on being human is strenuous.

It's only a "muddle" for the lazy and unfeeling.

If you are a sentient being (and I must assume this considering your ability to hit the "post" button with some part of your flesh and bone on a daily basis here), Robleto's work will move you and shift your paradigm in terms of an artist's responsibility of making art in this day and age.

Heck, you might even discover that underused byway between your head and your heart.

I have no hope. Lazy to human self-reflection. Unfeeling. Merely sentient. Devoid of the capacity to marry thought to dream.

You've told me I cannot be anything but this if I do not celebrate the work of Robleto. I'm inclined, against the evidence, to be more charitable to you.

I don't agree with your adulation, but if you sense the earnestness, the poetry, the ability to move you, then I wish to be the first to congratulate you for loving art. The fact you can do that much leads me away from hurling epithets and just quietly away...

All I'm saying is quit your Aeron chair criticism, go out and actually experience the work and get back to us.

No call for universal celebration. If your limited jpeg-inspired theories about why you don't like his work still hold water, you win and I just quietly away...

You win either way actually.

Liar.

I don't believe you.

Prove it.

(that you are, in fact, human, not that you actually went to the exhibition).

You're telling me that the pigeon didn't get to you?! The boots?! The matches?!

Wow, I'm as stunned as you are a stone.

I haven't seen the retrospective yet, but I'm pretty excited to check it out given how thoughtful and mature "Heaven is Being a Memory for Others" is. I got the opportunity to see Dario speak twice on that show and was very impressed by him on both occasions.