To the Editors:

I am writing because Jimmy Hagan’s review of the last senior studio show cries out for someone to review it. First, a major blunder: Hagan, who is the arts editor, put the wrong photo with the article. Second, Hagan’s analysis is illogical and contradictory. He begins by criticizing the “niche” market for ethnic and/or “exotic” art and asks: “When people of color make work about identity…does it condemn the artist to eternal conversations of identity?” Yet Hagan goes on to complain that Lo and Draisin did not give a “sharp” enough critique the idea of “identity art.” Lo and Draisin’s artist statements made it clear that the art was inspired by the artists’ personal experiences around race and identity. However Hagan falls into his own trap by claiming that the works belong to the tired genre of identity art.

For example, Hagan ignores the open-ended meanings and the textural beauty of Lo’s red woven tapestry. He says that the concept is simplistic because the color, he says, “potentially” represents China, while another piece represents America. This kind of shallow analysis that “condemns the work of people of color” into the category of “identity art.” Hagan wanted to see a critique of this phenomenon, but he ignores the positive significance that art dealing with racial identity might have, i.e. a genuine personal narrative, craftsmanship and abstracted representations of emotion and experience. Hagan oversimplifies the matter by confusing artists’ visions with agendas. Who, except Hagan himself, is condemning discussion of Lo and Draisin’s artwork to a shallow conversation about racial identity?

—Karin Drucker
College senior