Force Majeure

Time Out New York, April 20 - 26, 2006

The premise is almost unthinkable: finding inspiration in the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Yet that disaster moved artist Kara Walker to organize After the Deluge, an exhibition tucked away in a mezzanine gallery at the Met, where Walker pairs a roiling selection of tangentially related paintings, prints and collages from the museums collection with her own works. Touching on a multitude of themes - from the representation of blacks in American art to mans primal fear of water - the show is an eloquent expression of one artists frustration at the enduring legacy of racism in this country. Read the rest of this entry »

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Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962-1964; Andy Warhol at the AGO

Memo to the Art Gallery of Ontario: fire your marketing staff. Initially, we welcomed the news that the AGO would be hosting an Andy Warhol show. And, even though he might not be the first person to leap into our heads to curate, we welcomed the participation of David Cronenberg, as everybody but heaven knows our misgivings about curators past. Until, that is, we saw the ads: “Sex symbols. Car crashes. Electric Chairs. We’d expect this from Cronenberg, but from Warhol?” Far from being clever and savvy, these ads actually raise the not-entirely-unrealistic prospect that the AGO had never ever heard of Warhol, nor had they any clue what he had ever done. Furthermore, what the general public knows of Warhol (aside from that dreary quote about fame that everyone invariably gets wrong) is that, over and above all else, he was a fey, pale, remote weirdo, and thus a prime candidate to create remote weirdo work. Read the rest of this entry »