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Eva Seifert's avatar

Spread the story about Santos stealing from a dying dog. If there's one story about Santos that will get traction, this is it. Who cares about his background or his (lack of) ethics? HE STOLE FROM A DYING DOG!! Get rid of him, McCarthy! (It just might work.)

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Charles Merzbacher's avatar

I'm a great fan of the Bulwark and of you, Charlie, but this is hands-down the most reactionary thing you have written since I started following your newsletter a few years ago. Where to start?

I write from Boston, and I can report that The Embrace--like most sculptures--is meant to be experienced in three dimensions. Judging its effect from a few cropped images is unfair. Once again, step away from Twitter.

In the context of the art of the past 80 years, The Embrace is actually a very conservative work. It is monumental, bronze and redolent of exactly the kind of figurative detail that your boy Frederick Hart revels in.

THIS is when you side with Karen Attiah? You, of all people, are on Team Attiah in asking that a sculpture placed in the heart of a publicly owned space celebrate one person's anti-capitalist, radical views? Really?

There are genuine problems with contemporary art. The art world long ago (as in, before you were born) stopped valuing craft over concept, but this was a natural response to a world where mechanical tools like photography could perform work formerly done by artists. We can't turn back the tide of ideas, but we can ask that art demonstrate both skill and meaning. The best contemporary art manages to do that. I would urge you to put down your Tom Wolfe and get out to some galleries to see for yourself.

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