That is to say: Nowhere
by James Panero
2002
Few of the artists are worth mentioning by
name, but some of their works may be noteworthy.
One of the first pieces in the exhibit is a large
computer printout based on Rudolph Giuliani’s portrait from
Time’s issue for 2001 Man of the Year. It is called LIBERTAS,
DEI TE SERVENT! (2002). The Chinese artist who produced this
work, in the words of the show’s curator, Lawrence Rinder, “draws
on the ‘great leader’ archetype familiar to the genre of
socialist realism … [and] substitutes for the more typical
figure of Stalin, Lenin, or Mao the American mayor who since
September 11 has become world-renowned.” You might imagine that
connecting the Left’s least favorite mayor to three gentlemen who
were collectively responsible for thirty million murders is
enough to please the Whitney crowd. Yet there’s more: this artist
“unexpectedly adds two balls of elephant dung
beneath the canvas, a thinly veiled reference to Giuliani’s
censure of artist Chris Ofili’s contribution to the Brooklyn
Museum’s ‘Sensation’ exhibition in 1999.” Sanctum sanctorum of
left-liberal New York piety: Forget Tiananmen; let us remember
the Eastern Parkway massacre.
http://newcriterion.com:81/archives/22/09/nowhere-panero/
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