Just stumbled across this reply to my Lester Johnson piece on Berkshire Fine Arts by the poet Rosanna Warren. Google every gallery on earth and you will find 99% are exhibiting "one show": a found object(ersatz sculpture ) on the floor, photo-document on the wall and a pseudo-profound statement about some group in need of uplift into the Hegelian dialectic.Global group think!!

Figurative Expressionist:Lester Johnson -->

Dear Martin,

What an extraordinary piece. I wish I could have seen the Johnson

show; I'm living in New York this year, on leave, writing.

You put your finger precisely on the problem: the coercive Hegelianism

of Greenberg's vision, and the intolerance it institutionalized. Great

image too, about the media world of Pop (and post-Pop, conceptual art)

as a vast  pyramid built by an army of slaves (us!). It's refreshing

to have you articulate so strongly and lucidly the fact of mass

dehumanization in which our culture of mass advertising and

consumerism collaborates. And to set Johnson's art as a

counter-phenomenon, of highly intelligent (not romantic) response and

analysis.

I never studied with LJ, but have admired his work over the years, and

am sorry to miss this show. Good for Acme-

Warmly,

Rosanna