Dieter Roth: (detail)Garden Sculpture What Are Masterpieces? "Roth Time," the first U.S. retrospective of Dieter Roth (1930-1998), is now at P.S.1 and MoMA QNS through June 7. [See the MoMA website for an online exhibition.] Ten years ago I could not have predicted that such a survey -- actually a double-header -- would receive the Museum of Modern Art imprimatur. Although Roth was European (German mother, Swiss father), there hasn't been much of a market for his work in the U.S.A., or much … [Read more...]
RUPPERSBERG’S ‘THE NEW FIVE FOOT SHELF’
Ruppersberg: (detail) The New Five Foot Shelf Why Leave Home? He lives there in two rooms which he had covered ceiling to floor with the most strange and troubling designs that made certain distinguished critics repeat for the thousandth time: It is nothing but Literature! -- Giorgio de Chirico, quoted at the beginning of each book in Ruppersberg's The New Five Foot Shelf I like to keep my eye on new forms as they grow and mutate. In the deep, dark past … [Read more...]
THE FUTURE OF THE RECIPROCAL READYMADE
AAA Corp, TransmissionTour, The Wages of Fear #01 The Use-Value of Art There must be something to Jung's idea of synchronicity. Or did my brain store away some dim memory of a press release? In any case, after last week's exposition of my categorical risk concept --inspired by the Lee Lozano exhibition at P.S.1 -- here is an exhibition on related matters, "The Future of the Reciprocal Readymade," curated by Stephen Wright for apexart (291 Church St., south of Walker, to April 17.) Yes, there is … [Read more...]
LEE LOZANO AT P.S.1
Lee Lozano, Untitled Drawing, n.d. A Method in Her Madness What is one to do with Lee Lozano (1930-1999)? A free-ranging survey of her art at P.S.1 in Queens (through April) prompts some thoughts. First of all, we get to see several bodies of work: large paintings and drawings of tools; drawings about sex, sometimes with tools as sex instruments; abstract paintings (but not her justifiably well-remembered Wave Series); and conceptual/performance pieces as spelled … [Read more...]
WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2004
THE ARTFORUM MOMENT
Twelve Years That Shook the Art World They were so young, so committed, and so smart -- according to themselves. But shouldn't we add self-deluded, pompous, and ruthless? The evidence is all there in the self-serving statements, contempt for others and general viciousness of the editors and writers of Artforumas recorded in Amy Newman's breathtaking Challenging Art: Artforum 1962-1974. It's now in paperback and a good beach-read even when it's too cold for the … [Read more...]
BILL MORRISON’S ‘DECASIA’
Still from Morrison: Decasia Film As Art Bill Morrison's film Decasia: The State of Decay is art. I don't mean to say that Hitchcock's Vertigo or any number of Dogma films are any less art. But Decasia is art the way Blood of a Poet is or Stan Brakhage's Mothlight or Bruce Conner's Movie or Andy Warhol's Empire are. Decasia was originally created for a multimedia … [Read more...]
NIKOLA TESLA’S WHITE DOVE
Nikola Tesla'sPowerTransmission Tower The Future of Opera In another life as an arts administrator -- once my "day job," as theater people say -- whenever myassistant felt she might have exceeded her brief, she'd preface her confession with the phrase "just so you know." For example: "Just so you know, I have paid Consolidated Edison rather than Verizon." To this day she does not know that I came to dread the phrase. But sometimes it … [Read more...]
MET FOLLIES AND OTHER COMPLAINTS
Pet Peeves Complaints will not be a constant theme, for their impact is diminished by frequency. Besides, I am, as friends and even enemies will testify, even-tempered and not quick to complain. But sometimes you just can't hold it in. Poodle poop in the Chelsea art district is an increasing blight. If you are going to live in that trendy neighborhood with a Comme des Garcons store as your only haberdashery, do as others must do: scoop the poop. I don't know if you live in Chelsea … [Read more...]
MARC QUINN’S STATUES
Marc Quinn, Helen Smith, 2000 When you first walk into the gallery, you will probably be attracted to the smooth, white marble and the semblance of sensuous flesh. How hard, white stone became associated with the softness of the body has to do with illusionism and cultural conditioning. That polished marble still signals art with a capital A is further evidence -- evidence you can feel -- that the mind as well as the eye plays tricks on the heart. That Greek statues were … [Read more...]