comments on our review

I had some time to sit with the "article" or "review" again for our current show.

What is that phrase, something like even bad press is good press?

I am not sure if I subscribe to that when we are dealing with a visual commodity - yes, I said it, I sell things that people BUY - to have the said art taken completely out of context and described in a manner that, well basically misses the mark about the work.
I have no problem per se with the article, I just think it should be giving the correct information - opinions aside. Not everyone needs to LIKE this show, but at least make comparisons with correct information.
And, as much as he is entitled to his "opinion", I too am entitled to clarify my show & the work of the artists I support.
And again, in reference to a previous post - If I had paid for this review, which I did not, I would like a refund.

So, upon 3rd reading, here are my conclusions.
When all other reviews begin with the artists name & an intro to back up the compelling & view-worthy nature of the work, ours begins with:
Kitsch is empty calories for the soul: the saccharine junk food capitalism sells you as a substitute for community. and continues for 3 paragraphs:
The author goes on to talk about Disneyland, Norman-Rockwell, "Day of the Locusts"...
the fashionable response to kitsch has been irony......younger artists, whose cultural memories are unburdened by nostalgia for anything that predated music videos...
This sets a tone that rambles about an intention that is not accurate. The artists are not going for kitsch.
Now here is the dig regarding YaYa Chou:

The other works in the show are a great deal more traditional, to the point of almost being Victorian.
If there's irony intended, it is subtle to the point of invisibility.

Foremost, the irony that Chou is playing on, is the irony of the animals used as a commodity & a consumed living form for the sake of mere human decoration.
NOT to revel kitsch & make a point of irony with kitsch, as the author says is the thing that is done - but not here.
We also see that he has overlooked the artist's intent to specifically reference domestic decoration in the era of Victoria.
If the work is "almost Victorian", he is implying that it missed the mark.
However, Chou is not attempting to appropriate or copy Victorian art, but simply to refer to it in her own mannerism.

Katy Bowen's work bears...felt-lined pits and pompom-stuffed occlusions that are at once abstract and vaguely suggestive of lesions...The overall effect is of paintings afflicted with pastel acne. The artist manages to achieve, quite deliberately the dorky hideousness that hobbyists usually only perpetuate unwittingly.

Reading this 3 times now, this has Got to be the most Subtle, if not Strangest Backhand compliment on work I have ever read. Most people do not have time to reread this & see that there is a abhorance for craft arts here, which are so obviously being used, then followed by
I think there is more to it than that. Bowen is creating a fictional hobbyist persona that reveals kitsch as the end product of trying to own the sublime.

To quote the artist, "I really wasn't going for hideousness."
And again, this reference to kitsch - it is nowhere in the press release or the artists statements.
She is also, not going for acting as a fictional hobbyist persona. The use of the materials is a reference to memories of first time art projects during childhood. Sublime is not the goal here.

The most troublesome portion of the article, is the comparison of this work in the show with Bowen's "Quonset Hut Gift Shop".
Although the "Quonset Hut" Project was a brilliant commodity show in reference to Oldenberg's "The Store" as the article rightly references -
THIS WORK IS NOT IN THIS SHOW.
The author obviously went to the gallery website instead of reading the information I gave him about the show itself.
There are some great commentary there, which is great for Katy in general, but again, not her new work we are featuring in the show.

In the last paragraph he again refers to Katy's hideousness of her work as a degredation that attends all commodification.
...so normal in a world where everything and everyone is merchandise, that it takes a poke in the eye to draw attention to it. But let's not forget that in the context of the art world, a poke in the eye is also effective marketing.

That's the backhanded compliment, prefaced by the erroneous intent, followed by a dig at my curation - again with erroneous intent noted.
If I wanted to really market a show that "everyone" would buy, it wouldn't be art, it would have been shoes that people could actually wear.
Or in this case, art you Could actually eat.
Because "everyone" needs to eat. (No, you cannot eat the Gummi Bear Chandelier)

But "anyone" can buy art.