Proof of Concept

Unmonumental, the premier exhibition at the New- New Museum has been heavily reviewed. It is an evolving exhibition that began with Unmonumental: The Object, which is 100 objects by 30 international sculptors. A month later 2D collage was added to the exhibition as Unmonumental: The Image. The proceeding month sound installations were added, followed two days later by an online component of Internet based pieces hosted by Rhizome.

I entered the exhibition haunted by the Dionysus show at the Pompidou Center in 2005. That show also received much acclaim and featured Thomas Hirshorn's indiscriminate appropriation and proclivity for dildo's and Jason Rhodes-esque chaos and grime but left me feeling like I had wondered through a post apocalyptic garbage dump turned porn shop.

The aesthetics and materials of the Unmontemental show were as I expected; piles of garbage, cardboard, naked particle board. What I wasn't expecting was to find a harmony and cohesiveness that transcended any one piece but was achieved through a dialogue between collection of works that can predominately be described as unartfully arranged garbage. The tone of the exhibition echoed the efforts of the sculptures, works that incorporated very humble materials whose relationships create connections that extend far beyond the original raw materials. The curatorial premise and decisions create a context for each individual work that grants each piece a greater significance.

After viewing the 4 floors of the show, I felt that the New Museum’s curatorial team of Richard Flood, Laura Hoptman and Massimiliano Gioni are claiming that a despondence and hopelessness created by a surfeit of crap commodities is the 21st Century zeitgeist. According to the New Museum's literature:

"This millennium appears more concerned with iconoclasm than with creating new, empty and shiny icons."

And if the context is limited to the 4 stories of the New Museum then Flood, Hoptman and Gioni make a very compelling argument. But I have to wonder, were these three so busy moving to their new location and assembling the "100 objects" for the show that they didn't notice the sale of Jeff Koon's 23 million dollar Heart, or Damien Hirst 's School: The Archaeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity, and the Search for Knowledge,” for $10 million for the Lever House Art Collection. (This was a show threw in every icon and artistic cliche along with the kitchen sink along with some skinned sheep carcasses and a dunce cap for good measure).



And what of the Guggenheim's recent shows? Richard Prince celebrated American male sexuality through the icons of hot rod car parts, the Marlboro man and sexy nurses? The current exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe is a show of mounted spectacle in a monumental scale. The prices of the aforementioned artists are so inflated, that by expense alone these works become instant monuments. The climate of the art scene in New York ,the home of the New Museum, presents the great evidence against the premise of Unmonumental.

Labels: Damien Hirst, New Museum, Richard Prince