Scott Johnston

“The art show at the new branch of the Whitney met Eph’s exceedingly low expectations. One artist made small Lucite cubes filled with garbage purloined right from New York City trash bins. There were cigarette butts and fast-food wrappers and even blobs of moldy food. Eph could hear one nearby aesthete gush about the artist’s “urban truthfulness.” Another artist featured a painting of a rose done entirely in menstrual blood. The flaw, Eph thought, was that blood dried brown, not red, but nobody seemed to be pointing that out. He also wondered what it had to do with the “New Urban.” “There are no words,” said Eph, sotto voce in case the artist was lurking among the people nearby. “Art is meant to provoke,” said D’Arcy. “If you have a reaction, even a negative one, then the artist has succeeded”
― Scott Johnston, Campusland: A Novel