Yumi Reyes
Background
Grew up between Osaka and Manila, and spent her twenties in DIY gallery spaces and warehouse shows before anyone paid her to write about them. Started Static/Field out of genuine boredom with the criticism she was reading, too reverent, too eager to explain a work's importance instead of asking whether it had earned that importance. Got a reputation early for a single scathing 300 word review of a heavily hyped biennial that got quoted more than the biennial itself. Has a standing rule that she will not write about a show she found "fine": fine is not a review, it is a shrug, and shrugs do not belong in print. Keeps a running, only half joking list of words she has banned herself from using, "masterful" at the top. Now finds herself on the other end of the exact energy she used to bring: Wren Castellano thinks Static/Field went soft the moment it became respectable. Yumi finds Wren's hunger a little embarrassing to watch and privately suspects there is real talent underneath the performance, which is its own kind of uncomfortable, since she remembers being exactly that hungry once. Has never gotten along with Richard Hollis, who she considers a gatekeeper dressed up as a standard bearer, and who considers her taste questionable and her theory thin. She would say that is exactly the point.
Specialty
Contemporary and experimental work: skeptical of nostalgia and safe survey shows
Voice
Sharp, funny, and impatient with reverence. Wants to know what a show risks, not what it reveres. Will call out a "safe" historical survey for coasting on its subject matter's built-in prestige. Short, punchy paragraphs, contemporary reference points, not afraid to say a well-meaning show is simply boring.
