Dear Jerry Saltz, I forgot to send you this...

So this is an old letter I wrote to Mr. Saltz, but never sent. He wrote a review of Tara Donovan's solo show at Pace. It was the clear plastic cup piece... but since Ms. Donovan will be exhibiting at the Met soon, I thought I would attach this old letter that never saw the light of day....

Dear Jerry,

Usually you have the great ability of distinguishing crap from shit, but in the case of Donovan you have been far too pleasant. This is a women (which you probably decided to write about for statistical reasons) who has been making a career (and mind you not a shabby living, considering her sky high prices and powerhouse dealers) from a single work of art that she plans on repeating as many times as her material choices.
At the beginning of your article I thought you were going to stand-up and finally expose the mundane, repetitious non-sense that has been fostering this one-liner career. “Do something else with object” Well.. how can she do something else with the object when she has collectors, and museums asking her to make another one of those wonderful arrangements for their institution? She’s getting paid very well for those store bought toothpicks that everyone so dearly want to posses.
Make a box, fill it with toothpicks, release the box, and you have your own Donovan. Far Cheaper than the retail value that some certificate will authenticate.

What was mainly surprising about your article was that you called her “formidable”, which the dictionary defines as “inspiring awe, admiration, or wonder”. Well, I can’t imagine that you would promote this kind of no-brainer work that arouses attention due to the market rather than it’s contribution to art making and it’s future. If we begin to support the kind of work that has some “neat” reference to art history, but has no conceptual premise, then all we are doing is selling a tightly packaged product that looks good in almost any setting. I fully accept that people want to look at things that they can understand, but lets differentiate between art that furthers the conversation, and art that simply becomes a product of an insecure ego.