Passing by an
outdoor performance yesterday and witnessing a comedian totally bombing to the
point where the large audience was about to boo him off the stage, I suddenly
remembered that I hadn’t published anything about my recent visit to the
Whitney.
Aside from well-curated
selections from the Museum’s permanent collection now on view, the most
impressive art experience of the evening was walking into an unintentional
performance – a guided tour of the Koons exhibition in progress before a large,
rapt audience – and feeling as if
I had been transported into a remake of “Brave New World.”
My first thoughts about the work on view, gathered in a Facebook comment, were:
“…srsly…my
thought for the day on the Koons show is that the visually grotesque* has its
place in my aesthetic. The socially and psychologically grotesque not so much.
I just don't know when to take it as satire and when to be repelled and very
afraid...srsly...”
But I had to ask myself,
“Why?” I am simply not one of those people who only considers “serious” art to
be art…
At the opening of Paul
McCarthy’s “WS” at Park Avenue, I
jumped for joy like a kid at Disneyland – he had built an enchanted bridge
between art and fun for the subversive pleasure of art-jaded grownups. Kara
Walker’s visual depth and dexterity allow her to gracefully hopscotch around
the lines of “taste”, eliciting a smile or a laugh even as we confront
prodigious grief and brutality. Her 2007 show at the Whitney was masterful. My multi-talented dear friend, the late Chris
Twomey**, played with sexuality and banal materials, particularly in her “XX”
& “Tsunami” bodies of work – I can still see her grin and wink as she
watched somewhat shocked viewers take it all in with a gasp and a giggle.
The Joke Rule:
If it makes you laugh, even in spite of
yourself, you can’t complain about it.
And what is more the
function of visual art than to evoke a strong, immediate response without
requiring analysis?
So, when I cannot, even
while trying to understand, get myself to respond with anything other than a
kind of numb confusion to Koons’ work, I am released from the rule. I still
stand ready to come out and play, but only if it is fun… LD
 |
| Chris Twomey, Triumph of the XX (installation) 2008, aluminum foil, prints, DVD projection (c) estate of the artist. video from the series |
* fine examples of the
visually grotesque, well used, can be found in the works of Philip Guston,
Francis Bacon, Ahmed Alsoudani and others…
**A retrospective of
Twomey’s work is planned at Creon Gallery this coming season. http://www.creongallery.com/
