The Other Side

I received my regular Hallwalls member newsletter e-mail, written by John Massier, today. They have a different view of the deacession at the Albright-Knox. I'm going to copy an excerpt here:

Crazy Carl Dennis turns to the Erie County Legislature
In a scene that was not quite Kafkaesque but nonetheless ludicrous, Ed Cardoni, Bruce Adams and myself attended a session of the Erie County Legislature, which had agreed to hear the grievance of the Buffalo Art Keepers against the Albright Knox and its deaccession plans—BAK hoping that the County would halt the impending sale. Representatives for the Albright spoke, as did Patrick Klinck and Carl Dennis. Cut to the chase: the legislature gave Dennis and Co. their day in the legislature but, wisely, deferred to the Albright’s long history of professionalism, not to mention the previous opinions about the institution as defined by ECCRAB (Erie County Cultural Resources Advisory Board), AND the lawyer for Erie County—who, interesting, pointed out that the County had no hand in creating the Albright OR developing its collection, so had no real legal position to interfere with its activities.
I say the following without malice, since I don’t know the man: every word I heard Carl Dennis speak dripped of deluded insincerity. Or should that be sincere delusion? Or maybe just crapola? If he truly believes he is somehow in the right, well...sad is a paltry word to describe him. It was infuriating to hear this self-styled cultural vigilante intone about the mistaken course the Albright had imbarked upon with that gravelly poet/grandfather voice and that subtle tone of someone who knows best and is there to tell you how wrong you are. At one point, Dennis tried to make the case that the issue was not a struggle of the contemporary vs the traditional but one of people with “historical imagination” and those who lacked it. That, my friends, was the moment I hurled my imaginary rotten tomato at his big pulitzer-prize winning head.

Jeff Simon also offered his opinion on the subject. The battle rages on....

Post-post- Check Elizabeth Licata's post on the Buffalo Spree Blog, and Bruce Jackson's article in Artvoice.