International Beauty Supply

JOSEPH BEUYS: FELT AND FAT

On entering the massive grand Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, it’s somewhat amusing (yet understandable) to see a crowd so enamored with Doris Salcedo’s brilliant rock-wall casting Shibboleth, an essentially incomprehensible crack that runs the length of the structure that would be difficult to interpret as a metaphor of racial divide without a comprehensive artist’s statement—this being the case for much of what’s stored here and elsewhere in galleries of the modern persuasion. Signs posted warning people to stay alert testified to those who had already found a way to hurt themselves in blissful exhibit interaction.

What’s fascinating about travel and visiting galleries in other countries is seeing exhibitions containing pieces I’ve seen elsewhere, whether here in New York or back in Seattle. Here at the Tate a retrospective of Louise Bourgeois contained pieces Cara and I had seen in 2006 on a day trip to Dia: Beacon, where Bourgeois is part of the permanent collection. Also on hand was a new acquisition, Deluxe, by Ellen Gallagher I had seen a few years ago at the fine Henry Art Gallery on the University of Washington campus. All this making up for the confounded, pretentious mess of a group show World as a Stage that found most spectators walking through faster than a midtown crowd speeding by a gauntlet of panhandlers on a street corner.

Finally, Piero Manzoni’s Artist Shit (1961) in person.