The Schmoos going home to their igloo. Courtesy New Museum, NY. Photo: Benoit Pailley |
Keystone freestanding installations pull various amounts of weight: Robert Breer's eerie, lovable Floats (1970/2011), like miniature schmoos; Hans Haacke's Blue Sail (1964-5), a square of chiffon blown in wavelets from below; Stan VanDerBeek's time capsule-like Movie-Drome, viewed lying down; and Richard Hamilton's Man, Machine and Motion (1955/2012), a dry, didactic, corporate-looking modular installation with images of various means of transport. The show was curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari and runs through September 30.
François Morellet's cool Sphère-trames. Courtesy New Museum, NY. Photo: Benoit Pailley |
There are a few works in the classic vein, such as Claes Oldenburg's Profile Airflow (1969), a translucent, green plastic mold of the automobile that resembles Jello; and drawings by Rube Goldberg detailing Professor Butts' demonstrations of the artist's famous jerry-rigged inventions. Francois Morellet's Sphère-trames (1962), a sphere formed of a metal grid, is an example of the numerous geometry-based, optical illusion artworks by such op-art pioneers as Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely. Otto Piene's light sculptures have a science project feel, making good use of the lure of twinkling lights.
Emery Blagdon, Healing Machine. Courtesy New Museum, NY. Photo: Benoit Pailley |
Some work emanated from scientific representations: Channa Horwitz's "Sonakinatography" compositions, carefully constructed and colored graphs; and Bell Labs engineer Herb Schneider's "Engineer Drawings" for performance evenings by Robert Rauschenberg and friends. While a show like this cannot be comprehensive, I felt Bucky Fuller's absence. The show only strayed when it came to the inclusion of Jeff Koons' double vacuum sculpture, which felt like a slapdash, cynical addition to otherwise thoughtful curation. Or maybe it's just backlash from overexposure, unlike the rest of the engaging artists in Ghost in the Machine.
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