But there is a catch, one that seems in keeping with the surreal nature of the artwork itself. Because of concerns about legal action by Mr. Buchel, the museum will shield all the huge objects in the warehouse from view with tall plastic tarps, as if Christo and Jeanne-Claude had intervened at the last minute. Viewers will be allowed to wend their way through the cavernous hall but they will have to rely on their imaginations, mostly, to appreciate the show.

From NYT: The Show Will Go On, but the Art Will Be Shielded

In a nutshell: artist and museum couldn’t get along so the museum (MASS MoCA) decides to open the show anyway, but cover all the objects.

The decision is intended as an artistic and provocative solution to a difficult situation […]

Please. It’s a total cover your ass move. The museum painted themselves into a corner and then decided to call it a performance.

This is just the pathetic apogee of the curator-as-artist ‘movement’ that I’ve been unhappy to notice over the past few years. The curator-as-artist thing is simply an abuse of institutional power.

update
Hmmmmm. The more I think about this, the more ambivalent I become. It doesn’t seem like a total scope of the project was decided on in the beginning. To me, that would be negligence on the museum’s part. Working with artists requires some flexibility, but to have a huge airplane fuselage foisted on you at the last minute seems to go beyond mere flexibility. To not have known about that before the project started seems unbelievable to me.

Of course, if it is some elaborate prank on the institution, I give it a thumbs up :) permanent link to this post