https://flic.kr/p/kxvfKk

Date: 12/10/99From: kruller@Princeton.EDU (Kruller Magazine)

Dear Mr. Kotz-Gottlieb—

We would be failing our obligations as artists by not replying to your message. if indeed this isn’t a joke, we strongly disagree with the entire idea of ‘Gleitzeit’ art/ The description fails to say anything concrete; it is a laundry list of glittering generalities. Instead it merely serves to make what ought to be a fundamental ground-rule of ANY type of art—that there is two-way communication between the artist and the spectator— and makes it complicated and inaccessible to the vast majority of the spectators—the human race—to which art ought to be aimed. Last any of us checked, “pattern of line” was a given in visual art; it is something taught in 9th grade art classes and it does not need a fancy German name. The entire mission of Kruller was to call for a general removal of such pretense in the arts community, starting with how literature was treated at our university, Indeed, it is our firm belief that artistic theory for its own sake, where the theory itself seeks to be some sort of work of art, is needlessly complex and ultimately selfish; to make art which is only accessible to academics is not to make ART at all. It is an academic exercise, and nothing more.

We do not wish to be antagonistic, but merely engaging; it is only through such engagement that intellectual progress is actually made. We hope that you are not offended, and rather that you understand that we would be sacrificing our principles were we not to respond in this situation. Sincerely yours, The editors of Kruller Princeton University