Jerry Saltz on #class via Facebook

Since I didn't get a chance to write about #Class I'll share one or two thoughts here.

When I first heard about #Class I imagined an insular group of people all telling one another that they're right and everyone else is impure.
As a paranoid I also imagined that I would be branded as "uncool" and that if I even dared to appreciate what was going on or Dalton's work or Powhida's work, that the show, or the artists would be labeled as "sell outs" or "playing to the man."
So I was hesitant going in.

I never saw or felt that once in the show itself or form anyone around it (although I did read some terrible things said about me on blogs to the effect of "If HE'S there you know there must be something WRONG about it.")

As I returned to #Class, in fact, I felt that Dalton/Powhida had created a structure that was actually able to grow and was growing in ways that they or we could not predict.

That, to me is one of the definitions of VERY GOOD ART. Can you create something that then creates ITSELF.

I was surprised every time I went in #Class.
That is another sign of very good art: The art was generating more energy than was being put into it. It felt alive.

At first I thought that Dalton/Powhida should get back to their art and families as soon as #Class ended. The more I went to the show, however, the more I was reminded of a free-forming rangy messy energy that I had felt once-unpon-a-time in places like the early Nature Morte, International With Monument, American Fine Arts, Gavin Brown, The Project, Orhcard, Michelle MAcarone, and lately at The Independent, Harris Leiberman, Lisa Cooley, Miguel Abrau, rental, and many others.
Something is happening here.
What it is ain't exactly clear.
But it's good. And it's growing.
On the last day of #Class I was wishing that Dalton/Powhida might take this structure on the road and see what happens ... ... ... OUT THERE.

(I am sorry if it costs them studio and family time.)

Disconnected impressions ...