Word: katze
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There is no doubt that Katz, at 58, is one of the few painters who are equally popular with critics and the public in America; he is, judging by the affection his work seems to evoke, the Norman Rockwell of the intelligentsia. To doubt the ultimate value of Katz might be construed as a vote against sunny lawns, clean, eager profiles, bright lakes, East Hampton parties, pretty women in lofts, long marital attachment and, above all, style--in short, against everything that makes the arts-and-leisure section of American life such a nice place...
...taste for Alex Katz's work is easily acquired, but is it obligatory? After reading what has been written about the Katz retrospective that opened last month at New York City's Whitney Museum of American Art, one would think so. The reviews and catalog essays thus far have favorably compared him with Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Jackson Pollock, Frederic Remington, Caspar David Friedrich, Cole Porter and Fred Astaire. "Katz's astonishing achievement," writes Curator Richard Marshall in the catalog, "is to have reconciled abstraction and realism in post-World War II America...
...Katz's article did manage to deplore the actions of those protesters who sought to impose their personal views on the entire Harvard community by interfering with the presentation of Jorge Rosales of the Nicaraguan FDN (Contras), calling them "totalitarian," and rightfully so. Unfortunately this one creditable statement was in danger of being lost in a morass of obfuscation and extraneous debate. Most of the article deals with a rather torturous examination of whether the Contras as "murderers" ("which [Mr. Katz] tend[s] to agree is the case") should be allowed to speak. The very title of the piece...
...confusion came in reading Mr. Crystal's letter commenting on Katz's article. Mr. Crystal bristles even at Mr. Katz's weak formulations, boldly declaring that "the Contras' behavior is objectively [his emphasis] wrong" and thus justifies the extreme actions of the protesters. Mr. Crystal, however, in his zealous pursuit of convenient truth, completely avoids discussion of the fact that the actions of the Sandinista government with regard to its deplorable treatment of the Miskito Indians, or its suppression of civil liberties, especially the organs of the Church, which have voiced dissent over government policies, are objectively wrong and deserve...
Contrary to whatever Mr. Katz might try, there can be no hedging on the simple fact that it was wrong for those protestors to throw their bottles and red paint at men who only wanted to participate in what has been a highly controversial debate over a very volatile area of the world. Mr. Katz's unwillingness to flatly declare that the actions of the protestors were wrong was unfortunate, but he at least could see his way clear to voice some denunciation, while Mr. Crystal's refusal to accept even this is the very essence...