Dear Jerry Saltz,

The two of us would like to personally thank you for critiquing our work. The very fact that you have written an article about our sculpture in Astor Place, The Last Three, is a huge success in our minds! By drawing attention to our art, featuring the last three Northern White Rhinos on Earth, you are helping us achieve exactly what we intended. The more people know about the plight of the rhinos, the more they will be empowered to get on board and create lasting change – so thank you for contributing to the cause.

However, there are just a few points we were hoping to correct you on. You wrote that we are a “saccharine sight” of an “ultrawhite couple – she resembles Nicole Kidman, he a young Christopher Reeve.” While we are big fans of both actors, and see no issue in being ‘ultrawhite’, we are proud of our cultural backgrounds and would like to address this point. Contrary to what you wrote, Gillie is actually half Indian. Marc is an Austrian Jew, who comes from a family of holocaust survivors.

Another comment we wanted to bring up is your mention about us being “ditzy and clueless when it comes to sculpture,” but with our hearts in the right place. Well, this is not entirely incorrect; our hearts are in the right place, and we appreciate your acknowledgement. Yet, we are certainly not clueless when it comes to sculpture, which has been further affirmed by the fact that you critiqued our artwork! We have been creating rhino art for the past 7 years, awareness for the cause. The Northern White Rhinos featured in our art are named Sudan, Najin, and Fatu. We sculpted them in this way, because we needed the piece to garner attention. We are proud your article has evidenced our success in this endeavor. There are countless works that you, a respected art critic, do not draw attention to. However, you chose to write an entire article about The Last Three, so thank you!

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