isn’t it fair enough to relate hains and bradford whether formally or conceptually? they have a lot in common no? i would be surprised if bradford is unaware of hains. also, it is a pretty strong read to act like this was some kind of forced formal cohabitation, they are two galleries away from each other. as are the hodges and eliasson. again, there i could ask, “well don’t they have an interesting relation?”. they are both circular mirrored objects. one breathes and deliberately causes the body to change shape as you watch it, the other fractures the body and perspective, but both relate to the body’s relationship to itself and comment on subjectivity to a degree. can olafur only be placed in relation to jeppe hein or some other contemporary, and hodges to gonzalez torres or roni horn? i mean it’s a collection show…some room for maneuver every ten years or so no?

there are problems with this show am sure, but also many standout conversations and moments. cornell and hujar especially good and unexpected. the buren and cadere have infinitely more in common than the fact that they are both striped, each speaks to a profound questioning of the status of the art object in relation to place and context. buren took his art out of the gallery, inverting the readymade justification of duchamp, and cadere placed these objects in the gallery without the sanction of the given institution, a subversion of the very energy that made the readymade a seemingly valid artistic construct. just how does a curator place a cadere to look “univited” as you would like? isn’t that kind of gimmicky? given that it is now very much invited? didn’t cadere place his works against the wall ‘as if’ they were invited? what would an invited work that was once uninvited, (but at the time meant to be thought of as invited) look like if it was made to look uninvited? that would be a good challenge to figure out. (it probably should have a label though, i agree there).

am disappointed you did not talk about the kudo, the fischli and weiss, the schwarzkogler, the oldenburg or any of the other myriad of works that to me had a wonderful ability to create conversations. i guess i see where you are coming from in some ways, you clearly wanted a ‘historical’ show, but that can be a fetishized concept and often leads to the embalming of art works within the narrowest of art historical trajectories rather than affording them the right to exist in the firmament of now (if only for three years).

i enjoyed your review because of its clear engagement and commitment to the topic, but don’t agree with your overall position as it was not my experience. thankfully no giant didactics like at the mia show telling me what to think. if i want to know more about a piece of art i like: Google.

j

I like the incisiveness, but I can’t share your consternation at the way Event Horizons is put together. It’s a hodgepodge, and the formal correspondences may be forced or imposed, but so what? The aggrieved, proprietary tone of the review suggests that there has been a failure to look at this stuff in the correct way — that there IS a correct way, and that the Church of the Conception itself had been defiled. Myself, I was content just to rummage through the show and ricochet from one thing to the next; I cared little about the curatorial strategy or intent one way or the other, and I can’t see why the public should care all that much about it either.

On how work more tangible than conceptual should be exhibited, however, I could not agree more with you about the Benches and Binoculars show, which I thought was just plain stupid, everything indiscriminately flung at the walls like pasta being tested to see if it sticks and it’s done. The curators of that show should be hung by their thumbs — they exhibit all the magnificent arrogance of an artist but none of the talent.

However much it disappointed you, the Event Horizons show delivered me to one overpowering experience — Bruce Connor’s film “Crossroads,” a work of art relentlessly calm and sublime in its dread. The soundtrack was incredible, a fusion of beauty and anxiety that made its way into my bloodstream. You may regard it as dated, or clichéd, but no work of art has ever made me feel so powerfully the reality of the elemental forces abroad in the world — the reality of physics or of Zeus — as did that film. I don’t usually have much nice to say about the Walker (going there is like visiting art that’s been hospitalized) but I’m grateful to them for presenting the piece. It was Homeric.

so patricia your critique makes me wanna go back and see the walker shows again. re-evaluate. i liked one too easily (”benches”) and the other i dismissed very quickly (”event horizon”). so i’m gonna print out your words, look again, and discuss the shows with you in my head. at length. which is what good criticism is for.

thanks.