Editor’s Statement on Art Critic Christian Viveros-Fauné

Since the departure of Jerry Saltz last March, the Voice has been assigning art reviews to several critics, all of whom work for us on a part-time, freelance basis. Each of them makes a living outside the Voice, and we discuss with them the nature of their non-Voice activities to ensure that they don’t conflict with their reviewing duties. One of our reviewers is former art gallery owner Christian Viveros-Fauné. It has been brought to our attention that Christian has been named managing director of two upcoming commercial art fairs, one in New York (Volta) and one in Chicago (Next). Christian assures us that the consulting work he is doing for those fairs does not conflict with anything he has written for us or would write in the future, and he has demonstrated to us that besides being an excellent and highly readable critic, he’s also a man of integrity. But we’re concerned that his work outside the Voice at least creates an appearance of conflict. While Christian says that the art at the New York galleries he critiques is in a separate sphere from the type of art that would appear in the fairs, we don’t want to put a reviewer in a situation that calls for an ethical juggling act. Since Christian has made it clear that he will continue to fill out the terms of his art-fair contract, we wish him great success, thank him for the excellent work he has done, and feel disappointment that he will cease writing for us.