INSANE CLOWN POSSE: Is It Art? Or Is It Voytec?

I was most gratified when one of my Facebook friends, Wojtek "Voytec" Wacowski, who is both a serious sailor and an avid photographer, jumped at the opportunity to visit the Friedrich Petzel Gallery last month after I blogged about the Sean Landers exhibit there. Apparently, the gallery was empty when he got there, and he just happened to have a camera and a tripod and a selection of striped shirts with him. The rest, as they say, is history.

Voytec tells me he went to see the exhibit so as to answer for himself the question I posed in my blog: Are these paintings fine art? Personally, I'd rank them as kitsch, right up there with those paintings of dogs playing poker together:

After seeing the exhibit, Voytec wrote me that he does consider Landers' paintings to be fine art. He also promised to explain his opinion, but so far hasn't been able to put it into words.

My immediate reaction to Voytec's photos is that they themselves are fine art:

Though I'm not really sure I could tell you why. You can check out the whole collection at Voytec's Facebook page.