ART:
“HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.”Thru February 12 2012 At Brooklyn Museum
Without Congress (or Rudy Giuliani) around to go bananas, David Wojnarowicz’s filmed snippet of ants atop a crucifix should make its New York appearance without controversy, lunacy, and demagoguery. It’s part of the Brooklyn Museum’s re-presentation of “Hide/Seek,” the D.C. show about sexual identity that caused a firestorm last year (after which the Wojnarowicz piece was removed). Insects aside, there’s excellent work here by American masters Minor White, Marsden Hartley (pictured), and Thomas Eakins. We get Marcel Duchamp in drag (not bad; I’d do him); Florine Stettheimer’s enchanted portrait of Duchamp as a floating-head spirit-swami; Berenice Abbott’s Janet Flanner as Harpo Marx/Jean Cocteau; Annie Leibovitz’s Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breasts. The lesson? Only Washington could treat a thoughtful show like this so thoughtlessly. — Jerry Saltz (NYMAG)
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/hide_seek/
