The idea: art critics pair with artists, and let the artists have the final word.

"Response: Art and the Art of Criticism," was curated by the well-respected group Chicago Art Critics Association (CACA), with Polly Ulrich, Claire Wolf Krantz and Janina Ciezadlo as the "point people" for I Space Gallery. Expectations were high for the eighteen art critics and artists who were featured simultaneously. But the bloggers and reviews weren't lavishing praise.

Wrote Claudine Ise, of art blog Bad at Sports:

"Suffice it to say what I actually encountered in the gallery was disappointing. I saw a very conventional-looking exhibition of art objects, all of which were accompanied by the standard wall labels..."

And Dan Gunn, of Newcity, wrote:

"Unsurprisingly, this phalanx of wordsmiths produced as disjointed an exhibition as the multitudinous artistic practices that viably exist in today's art world."

But I take a different view, as I don't see the show as gallery exhibit, but, as the catalog describes, it a

"multi-media event, with oral and written materials as well as recorded and online forms."

So if the framing of the show goes beyond the gallery exhibit and wall text, to encompass the full exchange of dialog (which including the website materials and the downloadable audio), then I'll examine it as a conceptual project that showcases dialog, with artworks merely as starting points for discussion.

The physical artworks created a respectable show. Carol Jackson's Tally is magnificent, a cowboy-style leather huge number that equals nothing (00,000,000,000).  The Duncan MacKenzie and Christian Kuras duo outdid themselves with Shows No Sign of Being Unresponsive, an emotionally devoid text filled in with teeny tiny flowers so perfect and painstaking it makes you cry (interestingly, Corey Postiglione, in his review, didn't take a stab at what their bonsai tree had to do with anything.) Conrad Bakker's stuff looks soft even though it's hard and Christopher Meerdo's roadside grove billboards make the mundane seem organic.

All the artists were handpicked by the critics who found their work to be worthy of discussion and examination.  And the critical essays were varied, sometimes self-reflective, and sometimes iconic of their writing, or in Lane Relyea's essay, no mention of the artist or artwork was made.

I think the conflict the bloggers and reviewers felt may be due to the difficulty in finding the boundaries of the show, the key question: What, exactly, was the show?  Where did the exhibit start and where does it end?  Was the text also artwork? Was the panel discussion by this group at Art Chicago a part of the show?

The trick with conceptual art is always about boundaries, framing and packaging. If I walk down the stairs, it's not art. If I tell someone, "Hey, I'm going to walk down the stairs as a work of performance art," and then I walk down the stairs, it's art.

The paperclip slipped onto paper is not art. Hang it on a spot on a white wall in the Whitney, then it's art. All art needs a frame, no matter how conceptual - it requires a boundary declaring the limits of the artwork.  Without a frame, it's not art.

So the problem with the show isn't the exhibit or the idea. Those are stupendous; I commend and encourage everyone involved. The problem is only that "Response" probably just needed a more clearly defined framework. For example, the show could have just been the opening night reception - have the panel discussion, all the artists and critics in attendance, and pipe the audio through the headphones. It would have been a happening, a visceral thing that happened between 5-7 PM. Then, for the rest of the month, the gallery could have shown the objects that remain only as artifacts of the big event, which is over.  Or conversely, the exhibit could have been a carefully constructed web experience, featuring a continuing flow of data that keeps getting added to and is and integrated into the show. In that scenario it becomes a digital art exhibit with an infinite, interactive catalog.

The relationship between conceptual art and dialogue is strong. My belief is that conceptual art is the point where visual art meets story. In the 1960's, the curator and critic Lucy Lippard was so close to the artists she curated. that her writing got blurred in with their art making, to the point that artist Robert Barry had an exhibit of her exhibition postcards (he would also do performances where he walk in circles around a cat, trying to hypnotize it). For some conceptual artists in the 1960's, the art became increasingly non-existent, and the questions and theories about the nature of art became the art. It all got so theoretical, that Barry finally took the position that artists didn't necessarily need to make art in order to be artists.

This show has some of those ambitious, de-materialized, conceptual art qualities, which I applaud. Conceptual art is fantastic, it stretches the mental muscles, because it requires the (re)viewer to re-think what it means to "see" a show. And these types of exhibits are rare due to the fact that they're not market-friendly, as there's often not much to buy.

But this exhibit takes advantage of our city's strengths: if Chicago has a style, it's that we're less elitist. We suffer through the stereotype of the working-man's art scene, which is probably not true. Yet we are, however, inescapably Midwestern, peacefully co-existing with stalks of corn and Cubs fans. The pedestals aren't so high here as in New York, which allows the critic artist and curator and audience to all have a place at the table, and to play around with the seating arrangement.

So if this exhibit is seen through the lens of an idea, an act, an encapsulated moment, then it's something brave, something that transcends objects, and works to break down the walls that separate us.

--Kathryn Born