Viewing page 37 of 44

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Remove the former promo-proto-art historical after thought of our epithet "pop" from the "artist" and one can really discuss Claes Oldenburg for himself which is what you might well have cared to do if you could have liberated yourself from easy way out movement mania. I can recall Claes as a wry yet naive expressionistic genre painter-sculptor of certain sinister psychological overtones who proposed an artificial store for his little still piece work "presided over" by a gross "bride" object. To apply the "explanation" or "put down" of "proto-pop," "quasi-pop" or "popular" would be simply unworthy of the straightforwardly complicated project of a complex artist. I think that I have established my point sufficiently. I do not have to comment further about Oldenburg's more recent history.

Since this is a private communication, I will relax my rule of not directly or publicly responding to the opinions of art criticism such as yours which cannot be equated with or substituted for art. (As you well realize, I do reply to personal attacks if I so choose.)

If the paintings of Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella and Darby Bannard constitute relevant art "of the highest caliber" in 1967 as no other art can, then, as an artist, I completely lack comprehension of my own effort and its contemporary