Amy's Robot

Even though today seems to

Even though today seems to be celebrity gossip day on both this page and the Amy's Robot Link Factory, let's talk about something less important: the Whitney. The big show over at the Whitney right now is The American Effect, which features a bunch of mostly non-American artists responding to our beloved country via their art. The frontispiece to the exhibit is a giant portrait of Rudy G., ripped off from his Time Man of the Year cover, and slightly modified to make him look a bit like Mao in a Communist Party poster. The lower portion of the portrait features a reprentation of elephant dung, a reference to Rudy's efforts to derail the Brooklyn Museum's controversial Sensation show when he was mayor.

Another large piece in the exhibit, directly across from the Rudy poster, is a life-size installation that depicts the dayroom at a convalescent home for superheroes. Elderly versions of Superman, The Hulk (bald), Mr. Fantastic, Catwoman, and Wonder Woman all lounge around, watching National Geographic Videos and AMC. Captain America is on life support in the corner. The exhibit's curators seem to be making an almost an explicit connection between Rudy and the notion of fallen heroes, a connection which can easily be extrapolated, in the context of the exhibit, to represent a view of the American Empire.

A somewhat less cynical work is a large model of the Manhattan of the future, put together by an African artist. Crazily-designed, gravity-defying, brightly-colored skyscrapers dominate the landscape. Apparently, construction on the work began pre-9/11, but was finished afterwards. One detail: a building around the WTC prominently features the word "BUSH" on its facade, designed in a way that suggests a marriage of political propaganda and commercial marketing. Also eye-catching are some of the photography exhibits: the German Indians I mentioned the other day, and the digitally-altered work of a Japanese photographer. One photo depicts an orange-haired elderly Japanese woman screaming across the Golden Gate Bridge in a motorcycle's sidecar.

Overall, the show is a solid one, although a bit heavy-handed at times. Along with the other current exhibitions -- Hopper, De Kooning -- in the museum, it's worth checking out, except for the Louise Bourgeois "insomnia" drawings, which are uninteresting.

categories:
posted by adm at 4:31 PM | #