Those who were in the exhibition, justified their inclusion as “great exposure”, while those who weren’t simply stated they couldn’t afford the entry fee or were loath to pay $175 plus another $50 in various other fees on general principal, myself included. If D mag were to pay me $175, then yeah, maybe. Whore that I am.

Frankly, I don’t think we should be overly concerned about a culturally irrelevant magazine with a tradition of pay-for-play exposure, lest local artists be deemed as misanthropic clique-sters.

Doesn’t lamenting loudly about the so feebly deemed “New Dallas Nine” (no disrespect to the artists) only strengthen D Mag’s/Wick Allison’s self-perceived purview of the local art world? Why should we care what D magazine thinks? Of course, if Glasstire had written such things, or ArtNews - that’s very different.

As an aside, it’s interesting to note that this whole D Art Slam idea was born from a very REAL artist-centric motivation last year by artists who knew the real goings-on in the local and regional art scene - aboveground and underground. These proactive artists left this event to D-Magazine/F.I.G.’s machinations when it became clear they were losing focus, disenfranchising local artists and were clearly more concerned about raising money for themselves than raising eyebrows, standards and awareness (or for that matter, money) for the artists.

To the artists both included and excluded from the show, I salute you. YOU are relevant.

Bingo!

Perhaps I’ve just chalked up his “we decided to hold our first-ever D Art Slam” statement to what 20th Century philosopher Pee-Wee Herman might have tagged a truncated syllogism. I’ve inserted here in parens what I think is the missing premise:

“We decided to hold our first-ever D Art Slam (in order to fill an empty slot on the f.i.g. calendar and pay the rent by learning a trick from vanity publishers while appearing) to showcase the largely unknown work of the best Dallas artists.”

And I trust that any thinking person will not choose to misunderstand my jokey little dig as harsh criticism, either of the artists involved or of Wick’s enterprise, and forgive me if I’m actually being unfair. But his editorial seems to me yet another example of how some of the most influential voices in Dallas, particularly those who have stronger ties to business and real estate development than they do to art and culture, misunderstand the latter category and only know how to view it in terms of marketing and promoting Dallas.

Take for example his reference to the Prix de Rome. For one thing, if his assertion is timely and valid, I wonder why he had to go so long ago and far away as mid-nineteenth-century Italy for an example.

But more to my point, it argues against rather than for his position. He might be surprised to know that those he derisively referred to as the “darlings of the academy and the salons of Paris” are actually more analogous to his unrepresented artists, because both have been characterized as producing somewhat predictable and formulaic work; while his “scruffy no-account types” (present company excluded, of course) are much more comparable to the artists represented by our more exemplary and respected commercial galleries. They, like the Impressionists he named and in their time, generally challenge popular tastes more than win their approval.

D Art Slam’s intentions, at least those stated in Wick’s editorial, really are noble and admirable. But I would remind everyone that his “best Dallas artists” didn’t earn that estimation because they really are Dallas’ best artists, but because they were applicants who, once culled by the 5-person jury, chose to pay the $175 fee. In other words, if you didn’t submit, didn’t get jurored or didn’t pay, then you’re not one of Dallas’ best artists.