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People love to invoke Walter Robinson's quote: "I admire Stella because he is making the ugliest art it is possible to make today.” Which, maddeningly cannot find the original source for this quote since the padding around it seems to matter. Because admittedly, the staggering asininity is their joy. They are like a clown exploding diagrammatically, intestines like silly string. The clown dies. But Stella's are essays in permanence. Matthew Strauss grammed all the various bird shit/piss on these that they will weather, because there isn't anything you could smear on these to make them better or worse, like a clown. And also like a clown, if a tumor is unchecked growth of a body, Stella's seem the unchecked growth of "creativity." Moles everyone has an opinion on whether we need them checked out. Which pretty sure is like a clown. Which pretty sure is a metaphor the these, some type of unchecked growth, clowning. These belong in the banks lobbies you see them in, absurdifying the notion of taste, of unchecked growth, all the clowns they let past security.