The book of revelations.

Irony may be dead, but it certainly reared its ugly head when yesterday Viveros-Faune made this brazen statement, "...in the art world, because success is so based on inside information and insider relations, I find very few people tell you what they really do think."

Today at MAN, Tyler Green exposes two huge conflicts of interest within the career of Christian Viveros-Faune (Jerry Saltz replacement at the Village Voice). In addition to criticizing NYC for the once-alternative paper, Viveros-Faune moonlights for a pair of art fairs (as head of sponsorship for one, even). Yuck. And ugh.

It's the best kind of writing, and why you should read MAN if you don't already (would anything like this make it into the glossy art magazines? I think not. And I think we all owe one to Tyler Green for making the art world ask questions of itself). Green says he didn't set out to ambush Christian - it came up as the piece was evolving.

Highlight of the story for me? The Village Voice, like a bunch of Bush administrators, quickly circles the wagons to protect their own, making this flacid statement "Critics in the arts sometimes also have other involvement in their fields."

Well, no duh. Of course, the tendrils of critics reach out into their fields. I write a little criticism for the local monthly magazine, I pen some features for KQED but my main gig is painting. As an artist I am about to curate a show for the relaunch of The Beholder. There is probably a conflict somewhere in all this. We should probably check in with Robert Motherwell or Barnett Newman for the answer (both write criticism and showed regularly). What I write about is what is important to me as an artist. I really have no truck in the larger art world.

Right now, I am working on a piece for KQED investigating why SFMOMA has only one piece of art up by a woman artist for every twelve pieces by men. Will this help my career? No, of course not. Do I have a vested interest? Yes, my six-year-old daughter told me the other day that when she is an adult she wants to live in Monet's garden (as a part of the residency program) and paint. I'm embarrassed to take her to the Museum. Sure, we've never had a woman president, but we sure as hell have had plenty of women artists especially in the Bay Area. I want to shame SFMOMA into catching up with the times. Plus, I guess if I never soar to blue-chip status, I will always be able to use the piece as an excuse for why SFMOMA never acquired one of my paintings.

Of course, Viveros-Faune is operating on a whole different level. He doesn't have unlimited power, but he has a lot of it. We all know reviews in the Voice matter a fck of a lot. His cavalier attitude is not acceptable. A career cannot be that compartmentalized.