When an art exhibit gets extended, it’s worth taking notice. That’s the case with Sarah Peters’ Being American. The exhibit was supposed to close at Winkleman Gallery (637 West 27th Street, New York) this Saturday, but it’s been extended until next Friday, July 27. For her first-time having a solo exhibition in a city that eats, sleeps, and breaths art, that’s a noble accomplishment.

What makes Being American impressive is Peters’ ability to look past herself as a comtemporary American artist to argue that it took a lot of bad art to get to where we are today in the art world. She question the very foundations of art in the United States as she considers the failed aesthetic ideals of the eighteenth century.

Through a series of hurried black-and-white drawings, Peters shows the rejected, castaway works of time gone by. It’s a landscape of passionate yet abortive attempts to create beauty that was based on European eccentricities. She even includes a bust that although is a self-portrait actually references William Rush, America’s first classical sculpture.

Being American has been getting rave reviews from critics, so go see for yourself what all the fuss is about. And we want to know what you think: Apart from its critique on early art, does Being American aesthetically hold up its own values?