The difference between the humorous hoaxes the Yes Men do and your hoax is that THEY are attacking the “bad guys”, while YOU are using the “good guys” as a battering ram to shed light on yourself. That is totally tasteless.

This piece is not funny, and it is counter-productive to a scene plagued by so much thanklessness. You’re doing the Co-Prosperity Sphere, The Yes Men and you a disservice by publishing this garbage.

It is a shame you take yourself so seriously (seriously enough to defend your poorly thought out actions), but find the potential damage done to people undeserving of mistreatment so lightly.

but its sooooo thankless and difficult to run a venue like the co-prosperity spere that i can see very clearly edmar’s position.

but i do still feel a bit bad about dipping a kitten in poo in the basement that night. poor thing.

aside from that, there was (really) someone from that night who was arrested the following night after an action against chase bank- and i am embarassed to say that i still haven’t found him! We were in a barr drinking by the time he was locked up… his first name is sergei, and if anyone knows him please put him in touch!

I was one of hundreds of individuals who showed up to participate in the Art War. I helped organize it. Assuming I am responsible for the actions of hundreds of other people is ridiculous. And so is your blog.

There is already scant coverage of the arts in the city. If your mission is to train people to decypher arts coverage on your blogs by testing their intelligence then its not really working here.

Readers who couldn’t decypher your prank would come away believing that we (yes men, c-ps, etc) are the kind of people that would censor free speech.

The difference between your attempt and the yes men’s work is that they disguise themselves to expose the truth. In your piece you disguise yourself to lie and damage people’s reputations.

You are fomenting negative opinions, as well as slandering and insulting people. You suggested that we condone censoring people at our space. You say the yes men were denying people free speech. That’s what i get out of your “art joke”.

I want you to continue your creative writing experiments, but just don’t lie and slander people just because you can’t think of anything else to write about. Don’t hide lying behind the veils of media literacy, performance art or creative writing experiments. Your embarrassing yourself.

I already knew your blogs were not very credible sources for arts coverage and criticism. I never really read them much. So it was weird to have a bunch of people i know send me a link to your weird yes men Co-Prosperity Sphere “art joke.”

So thanks for mentioning in the comments above that “most pieces are not proofread, let alone fact-checked. Reviews are done by people I don’t know, who are going to galleries I’ve often never been to. They could be the artist they are reviewing, for all I know.”

I remember a few years ago you admitted you didn’t really know whats going on in the art scenes of Chicago on the Bad a Sport site. I can see how that lack of experience and knowledge is affecting your work today.

You what? You want to TRAIN your readers? You want to TRAIN your readers NOT to believe what they read? Are you some kind of sicko? I don’t think most of your readers would like to know that the editor of the blog they are reading is trying to train them, that you think they are so media illiterate that they need to be trained. Megalomania anyone?

Ok, but Edmar, you and I personally discussed that incident, remember, we stood at Art Chicago and talked about it, about the phone calls and the ultimately peaceful resolution? However, I will officially retract, if I misunderstood the situation I apologize.

K

James