Eric Schmid is an Idiot @ Hyperallergic
DETROIT — I don’t pretend to know ancient Greek, but my understanding is that the term “philosopher” translates as “lover of wisdom.” I don’t pretend to be a great scholar or student of philosophy, but I am a strong reader and a voracious consumer of art, and engaged in an active process of trying to understand ideas, both professionally and in a sort of hobbyist capacity. I don’t pretend to know everything, but I have cultivated a deep wariness for a particular strain of academic and arts behavior that consists of conveying ideas in a manner so overwhelming, reference-heavy, and disorganized that it becomes simpler to assume it is smarter than you and proclaim it genius than it is to work all the way through it.
“I will fight against rationality and any pretensions to it,” proclaims the opening paragraph of a 15-page “press release” written by curator and Kavita B. Schmid co-founder Eric Schmid, furnished as an accompaniment to Eric Schmid is an Idiot — a group show organized by Kavita B Schmid (of Chicago) and What Pipeline (of Detroit), and hosted at Cave (in Detroit). I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that Eric Schmid is an idiot, but neither would I characterize him as a “lover of wisdom.”