Artistic interpretation

Ray Mark Rinaldi’s review of Jonathan Saiz’s installation “# WhatIsUtopia” at the Denver Art Museum totally misses the point. My sisters and I were lucky enough to visit the museum when the artist was showing his enormous, wondrous cylinder to his parents for the first time — and he invited us to join them on their private tour. What clearly came through is his deeply spiritual connection with art and his belief in its power to transform individuals and even the society at large. He wants to share this version of “utopia” with the world, and particularly its young people.

Rinaldi does a credible job of describing the installation, but he then implies that Saiz’s work really doesn’t belong in the “most important visual arts institution for 800 miles in any direction.” He says Saiz is “an artist who rips a crucial aspect of art as we know it, and who takes aim at the very essence of a major museum.” Really? That isn’t the Jonathan Saiz we met. And having visited many modern art museums around the world, I believe Saiz’s stunning and groundbreaking installation could hold its own in any of them.