To the editors:
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Once again, Wesley Kimler rears his shaven head in complaint, and the Reader is more than willing to offer a soapbox [January 22]. The former is no big deal: we’ve heard it all before. It’s just too bad that your editors again have been taken in by what now must surely be regarded as Kimler’s scam: if the public won’t pay sufficient attention to his art, it can be forced to pay attention to him. This has the unfortunate consequence of persuading some people–that is, those who don’t know his work or him–that there is some Chicago art world “controversy” where none exists.
As someone who wrote regularly on Chicago art for a number of years for the Tribune and elsewhere, I’m acquainted with the art scene and many of the other local critics, none of whom seem to bear Kimler any ill will. Most just shrug and roll their eyes at the mention of his latest antics, as if he were the wacky uncle who rants about the government and spills his soup every Christmas. His antics seem to have no effect on most critics’ regard for his work, which is predictably kind of interesting, sort of accomplished, and very large. There is no controversy save that his own sickness manufactures. A middle-aged crybaby whose self-regard still outstrips his talent, Wesley Kimler is no big deal.
