(To be frank I kinda lost my gusto for this review half way through, so forgive the departure of my concentration level after the second floor.)

Sometimes you go to a museum and it restores your faith in institutional wisdom - and you have a bit of fun.  I went off to the Whitney today - especially to see the Alice Neel show after several of the very fine illustrators and artists I know came back raving.  But let us start at the bottom - because that is where I like to start - none of the riding up the elevator and walking down for me.  On the ground floor was a familiar dark room with a mindbending installation by Tony Ousler - who's work I have always admired and always gives me a little thrill whenever I run into it.  

Tony will be happy to know that after surpassing my usual short attention span and started taking different positions within the room the first thing I noticed was that whenever I moved the new museum goers entering the room would stand near - but never in front of where I was standing.  People are so polite.  Anyway - the installation is based on the premise of camera obscura and using some fancy dancy high definition display he plays with our minds and our fear and fascination with the devil, magicians, and mutilated maniacs.  The best part of it for me is that of you stood just so - about 8 stone squares from the hole in the wall and 3 1/2 stones away from the wall you could get the sensation that one two glass devils inside the installation was coming towards you in creepy 3D. 

Up to the second floor to see Robert Rauchenberg's 52 panels as arranged by such luminaries as David Byrne, Martha Stewart and Mike Wallace. All I could think is "Who cares who arranged them?" and "why are all the guards wearing armani suits?" Each panel is all Rauchenberg and I'd imagine that they all would go together perfectly no matter how they were arranged.  The fact that these people were involved seemed like a cheap publicity stunt (I know them when I see them having been involved in bowing and scraping to likes of Tony Blair and Tipper Gore in the name of art).  The silk screened panels are very nice glimpses into Rauchenberg's collecting eye.

Up to Alice Neel - great 20th century painting - people with long fingers and their own anxieties showing through their popped out eyes….  The brush salesman, self portrait and Robert Smithson were my favorites.  everyone looks so startled!  So surprised or so nervous… portraits of the contemporary neurotic.

Barbara "the last word" Krueger is one smart lady.  The video in the stair well of two fine actors arguing about love, sex and race.  There was the hostility of Power/Pleasure/Desire/Disgust which finally gave me some insight into a friend I have who thinks the world is a hostile place.  The holograms -- visually easy - socially succinct and pretty to look at.  Truth and lies in red, black and white for easy consumption.  The queen bee of the one-liner - the devil and angel on the shoulder of the urban hipster.  I always imagine Krueger as an amazon, in a smart black suit with frizzy curly blond hair, severe eyeglass frames and crimson nails - no on second thought she bites her nails to the quick - no polish for her - and possibly no make-up at all.  No nonsense and no crap taken.  

I was exhausted after all of that --  I stumbled out without visiting the café or the shop -- straight out the door with my head spinning and hearing a faint but persistant roar coming from the West.  I couldn't help but think the 500 Harley Davidson riders and their women riding down Fifth Avenue wasn't some well timed extension of the all American Whitney Experience just like that opening at the Guggenheim not long ago. 
 

Esa Nickle
September 10th 2000