Thanks, Selma. I think I'll go and ask Sue and Banks how they like having their work called adolescent.

Seriously, this adolescent thing is a crock for several reasons. First, "a fluid, creative sensibility recognizing no distinction between a high cultural tradition and the proliferation of low or subcultural styles" pretty much defines all art since Pop. Kenny Scharf had a black light installation in the Whitney 20 years ago: it was Astro Jetson instead of Astro Focus but otherwise there's hardly any difference. Second, "adolescent" pretty much defines our whole culture: "Rock" is still the dominant music and every year we have a new crop of blockbuster comic book movies.

The Whitney curators' "quest for the adolescent" might be more valid if they weren't also trolling for "young artists" (meaning the 20s-30s demographic), as mentioned above. If they had to do that damn theme, some older practitioners like Lily van der Stokker or John Wesley might have been interesting inclusions because you can't really guess their age from their work. Or what about including actual adolescents, like we do here on this page? That would have "rocked," but also undermined the credentialed nature of the curatorial talent search. They want it both ways: to have professional youthful exuberance.

- tom moody 4-14-2004 3:08 am






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