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Thursday, February 5, 2009

Visual Art Because For Some People, This Is Going to Come Up, and It Needs Getting Out of the Way

Posted by Jen Graves on Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 4:40 PM

No, Lead Pencil Studio did not "rip off," "plagiarize," or otherwise commit a crime against Roy McMakin by using paint to delineate a space across parts of furniture in their new installation, as McMakin has also occasionally done in his work.

Instead, Lead Pencil Studio included the gesture, even after last year's ridiculous controversy over whether they are dull copycats, as a statement of what is still possible, despite ridiculous controversies.

To be clear, here is how I feel in hindsight about the ridiculous controversy. I wish I'd been clearer at the time.

Stranger visual art critic Jen Graves regrets taking seriously the ravings of the uninformed and the partisan in her consideration of whether the artists Lead Pencil Studio ripped off the artist Roy McMakin, because anybody who bothered to look into it knew damn well they did not.

Comments (3) RSS

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mcmakin is full of himself and other stuff - let the real artists roll

Posted by seattleartgal on February 5, 2009 at 5:05 PM

"The history of art is incorporation and then transcendence." –Steven Heller

Posted by Strath on February 6, 2009 at 8:56 AM

Hey, Jen. Is this you or is this LPS?:

"Instead, Lead Pencil Studio included the gesture, even after last year's ridiculous controversy over whether they are dull copycats, as a statement of what is still possible, despite ridiculous controversies."

Posted by dvnms on February 8, 2009 at 7:42 PM