BB: Your work is often described as provocative or satirical, but what comes through in your writing is a remarkable seriousness about art. Do you think it's become harder to speak sincerely about art without immediately being mistaken for irony?
DC: There’s this Vonnegut short story called Harrison Bergeron, have you read it? It takes place in a society where everyone’s forced into complete equality – if you’re too smart, for example, the government makes you wear these big headphones that ring with horrible noises until you forget whatever you were thinking about. The art world is like that, terribly afflicted with tall poppy syndrome, only they expect the handicapping to be self-enforced. Under those conditions, almost anything looks like provocation. That is, except compliance. That, to them, looks “right.” At a certain point, egalitarianism tastes a little bit like authoritarianism, doesn’t it?
BB: When visiting your Instagram one of the first things people can find is ‘If you want to make art without the risk of feedback don’t show it to anyone.’ It made me wonder about the importance of risk to you. Some works look radical while risking very little, while others appear conventional but carry enormous personal or emotional risk. What kinds of risks do you think contemporary art has become unwilling to take?
DC: Art needs to be thrilled by the present. Charmed and terrified by it, and ultimately just really, really curious about it. Is that a risk? Maybe not. It definitely seems like a basic idea, but it’s tricky with art people. They look at everything through such a dark, fatalistic lens, especially anything associated with modernity and innovation. There’s a lot of shame there. A lot of anger and fear, too. Just look at how upset people got by our “Why paint?” article – they were infuriated we even asked… Or, like, the response to Jon Rafman’s work, or Holly Herndon’s, or even [Jordan] Wolfson’s recent Prada spot. And those artists are on the conventional side of things. Their stuff is recognizable as art, exhibited in an art context. Imagine, then, what it’s like for artists pushing up against the bounds of the discipline, working in ways less recognizable as “fine art.” So it’s a challenging climate for experimentation, sure, but I actually think this is good, because the best artists always run towards the fire, and art will ultimately be stronger because of it.
BB: The second section of your Instagram manifesto states ‘blanket admiration is anti-art.’ This made me wonder whether we have become overcautious about making strong judgements. Do you think we have become uncomfortable with the idea of taste itself?
DC: We’re sort of too comfortable with the idea of taste, don’t you think? So comfortable that we don’t even notice its construction. Like, I know where you might be leaning – toward some send-up of relativism, or how identity art neutralizes good-faith critique – and I think that’s all valid, but prior to even having that conversation, you have to decide that that’s the conversation you want to have. For art people, by and large, that decision comes premade, it’s the only option. So the lens of what art is and what it can be – taste in the macro sense, epistemologically speaking – for most people, is rather narrow.
Like, what are the conversations right now? They’re about who specifically ought to have their oil paintings in such-and-such a collection, or whether the concept behind a sculpture show holds water, or, you know, commentary on brush strokes. Like I said in my Brooklyn Rail piece a few months ago, this is all just marginal thinking. We’re sanding the walls for a little extra space when we could choose to break away entirely.
So I’d say “taste” as it’s wielded in art is not nearly ambitious enough. It’s comfortable with the known knowns, as Rumsfeld would say. It’s calcified, conventional, with no lust for the unexpected.
BB: People often claim your criticism is negative, but what I interpreted was less negativity and more disappointment with the contemporary art setting itself up for less than it’s capable of. Would you say this is a fair assessment and do you think disappointment is a useful place for criticism to begin?
DC: I believe in art, it’s that simple. I’m incredibly optimistic and consistent on this. Art has no ceiling; it can move the world. So it should be held to the highest standard imaginable.
The most useful place for criticism to begin, then, is belief.
BB: In your interview with OFFICE you describe your works as "interpolations" rather than copies. At the same time, you've criticised contemporary art for returning to familiar forms. What makes an interpolation feel alive, while another kind of repetition simply feels exhausted?
DC: Maybe we’re thinking in different frames. Our group works situationally. For example, our Eliza Douglas painting [Eliza Douglas: Guggenheim, Overduin & Co., 2026, exhibited at Cirrus Gallery] confronts the artist’s own practice with itself. She’s copied others in the past, so what happens when we flip the mirror around? Well, for one, the artist might get a little ornery – Douglas blocked us, we wish her the best – but really I’m more interested in how this gesture affects the viewer and, along with our written critique of the show [in Texte zur Kunst] and our commentary online, how it makes for a more complete approach to criticism. It’s a tack I don’t see very often. In fact, I’ve never seen it.
The Pio Pico painting [Untitled (Young adults are having less sex than ever), 2026] is different. It reconstructs the composition of [Jeremy] Ringermacher and [Ariel] Pink’s painting, but depicts notable art figures instead of CalArts faculty. The show also had this question about art in the absence of digital reproduction, since we didn’t allow photos and none exist of the original.
In a broader sense, though, artists always have this built-in excuse when it comes to critics. Like, “yeah, yeah, well if you know so much about art, why don’t you make something?” It’s the whole Teddy Roosevelt, Man in the Arena thing. Well, now we’re in the arena. Here we are. And I think that feels alive. So, the frame has expanded. At this point, we have no precedent out ahead of us. All the moves are uncharted… and that feels very alive, too.
BB: You’ve argued that art criticism hasn’t really evolved since the 1960s. if we were having this conversation ten years from now, what would you hope to have evolved about both art criticism, and the conversations we are having around art?
DC: In February, this couple from Vancouver took a road trip to LA to see our show at Pio Pico. They were at the ArtCenter panel, too. Probably in their twenties. They chronicled the whole thing on TikTok. It was called “A thousand miles for Diva” or something, and every video had that “500 Miles” song, the one by the Irish guys [I’m Gonna Be by The Proclaimers]. Are they Scottish? Whatever. You can look it up. Anyways, I don’t even know if they know this, but we watched all of it. The whole account was beautiful. Here they were falling in love, or getting in arguments, or at Panera trying to drink as many of those supercharged lemonades as possible before the next haul. It was this incredible thing to watch, really romantic, but what I’m trying to say is that, truly, our stuff had very little to do with their trip, except that maybe it gave them an excuse to take one. And this, I think, is what art criticism can do.
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