Submitted by Ricardo Fernández, Nov 21, 2006 11:12

Despite living in New York for three years while in graduate school, the only time I visited the out-of-the-way Brooklyn Museum was on a subsequent trip, to see an exhibit of the work of Lee Krasner. I was very pleased to have made my discovery and filled with some regret that I had not taken advantage of this resource while I lived in New York. The show was a splendid survey of Krasner's work, well-designed in its flow and presentation, instructive, insightful and enlightening. It was conceived along traditional art-historical lines, in which the work--the objects, artefacts, paintings, etc.--is assumed to have a life of its own, an inherent aesthetic content that would lend itself only uneasily to thematic simplication of the type championed by Mr. Lehman (exploring themes of globalization, for example).

I have followed the controversy surrounding the curatorial re-organization (from afar, as I no longer live in New York) and consider Mr. Lehman's project to be a mix of condescension and rank political correctness. Too bad he does not believe in presentation strategies that are less about "engaging" the viewer in some sort of personal political agenda--bound to be narrow and parochial, in the end, despite its messianic undercurrents--and more about...learning to look with an educated eye.

Ricardo Fernández

Miami

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