[_shared_elements/comment_on_this_review.htm]

Open systems at The Tate Modern London
Reviews

From: art reviews
Category: Art
Date: 25 July 2005

Review

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/opensystems/

Bas Jan Ader John Baldessari Mel Bochner Alighiero e Boetti Marcel Broodthaers Lygia Clark Braco Dimitrijevic Valie Export Robert Filliou Gilbert & George Dan Graham Hans Haacke Eva Hesse Sanja Ivekovic Joan Jonas Donald Judd Ilya Kabakov Sol LeWitt Richard Long Mangelos Gordon Matta-Clark Cildo Meireles Bruce Nauman Hlio Oiticica Adrian Piper Charles Ray Gerhard Richter Martha Rosler Robert Smithson Andy Warhol

These artist radically rethought the object of art )according to the spiel for the show). The object was transformed from colourful painty cloths to plywood boxes, photos and type written texts, and other grey/brown/beige bits and pieces. Art moved from colour to monochrome, from the infinite moment to the delay of exegesis. This was a good thing. Imagine if everyartist was still painting and making heavy bronze sculptures. It would be like the art world was only cork street. The mass production of conservative decorative trinkets at high prices would be a depressing spectacle to behold. Instead we have a dominant curating and theoretical culture that values only what can be easily (but in a hard to understand meaningless way) explained, something with a pitch that can be made to the public,funders, and more importantly themselves. This has led to a glut of bad ephemeral art, and now there seems no alternative but this kind of work. So...

I guess there's no way you want to go back to connoisseurs and berets, and no happiness in now's art, and this show is tedious to look at, and The tate has too many didactic shows, and noone knows what can be next, but here's hoping it's a surprise.

[_shared_elements/comment_on_this_review.htm]