TheNew York Art World.com, February 2006

Kim Levin

This show, by Village Voice art critic Kim Levin, presents an unusual premise for an exhibition. Dubbed Notes and Itineraries, the show tracks Levin’s daily work routine as a well known art critic, in the form of lists and coded comments she has scribbled on accumulated gallery invitations and promotional materials, dating back to 1976.

The exhibition is installed and organized by John Salvest, an artist from Arkansas who is interested in such accumulations as an art form. In the front room of the gallery, we follow this nostalgic itinerary by way of hundreds of cards projecting from the walls; while in the back, the walls are covered with a collection of press releases and check lists, all reminiscent of a1970s conceptual display. Here the question arises: How were the cards and press releases chosen? Were the choices driven by esthetic concerns or by favored artists and or galleries? That certain galleries and artists are excluded from Ms. Levin’s itineraries is inevitable, yet intriguing in terms of guessing about the process of elimination.

In a time when it seems like everyone is an art critic and an artist too, Ms. Levin, who championed Appropriation as an art practice in the 1980s, goes one step further with the premise of this show in challenging the definition of the artist as original author of an artwork. Has art and art criticism finally been joined here in a marriage of convenience? In this regard, perhaps it is worth recalling that the great filmmaker artist, Francois Truffout, was once a critic before changing sides too.

E.K. CLARK