Yesterday I went with my friend Sarah, who was my undergrad roommate, to the Smart Museum in Chicago to see the show Heartland. There were 3 pieces in the show I enjoyed.
Cleave, Greely Myatt
Ziggurat East/Fisher Body, Detroit, Scott Hocking
and Dear Trusted Associate, Deb Sokolow
The inspiration came from my general dislike of the show outside of these 3 pieces. The concept was generally to take an American road trip and come back with a response, a collection of artists from various heartland cities. (The show was co-curated by and shown at a Dutch museum as well.) But- it felt more like a haphazard scavenger hunt. Not the best or most interesting selections, no sense of longing or desire to linger and determine relationships between the works - some of the Kansas City stuff was just really awful. It was as though they set out and grabbed the first of what they found: black art, check. gay art, check. bad installation art, check. lots of art that looks like dry documentation, check. Actual documentation of process of curating that was expressly not an artwork, interesting. It was the kind of show that makes one feel, or maybe just me, that I could do this. I would do it differently and I would like it better my way. The formally educated woman with good ideas rustled a little under her homeschool mom hat. (Please visualize the hat as a sort of four foot diameter straw number, and the rustling me as that muppet character from Fraggle Rock who was like a compost pile.)
Ah, there it is:
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