(Whitney Museum of American Art, 3 May 2024)
This exhibition is the best argument against socialism---or at least the version of socialism in which merit is apportioned by a committee of opportunists rather than by markets.
A generous interpretation of curators' intentions is to engage in small acts of insider trading: pluck an unremarkable artist out of obscurity, buy some of his work, exhibit the rest, and watch the artist's oeuvre appreciate. There is no law against that.
The best thing about the exhibition is the view from a window, any window, especially if not obstructed by "art."
A less generous interpretation of curators' intentions is that, having lost the public, they are scared and groom politicians for attention. Museums are no longer gatekeepers or trend-setters. Museums are largely irrelevant. Art is everywhere. One can go to galleries, one can go online, one can walk the streets, and one can stop by a Tesla showroom. It appears that, in order to spite the social media, which traffics in beauty so well, Whitney has turned to ugliness, which, presumably, sells to politicians, who have been preferring their messaging dark, as of late. Pandering to politicians is a dangerous game in a democracy, where prevailing politics are liable to change. Whitney's confidence in doubling down on the ugly may be a bad omen.
Will the cult of ugliness persist? Ugliness lacks universality. It excludes by design. In a society that is free, it will not survive.
Another ungenerous interpretation of curators' intentions is that they sought their offerings to be "diverse" as in "preserving irrelevant path dependence." By definition, irrelevant past is preserved when skill is lacking. The mathematics of a skilful mathematician does not sport the Southern drawl or clipped vowels. It is just mathematics. To seek out the scars of the past is to reward mediocrity. To sprinkle them with salt and serve them to the know-all elites is cruel to the mediocre.
