Art June 1985
Art and April in New York
On the artistic life in New York this spring.
What was happening in art in New York this spring? Downtown, the Grey Art Gallery at New York University offered “Precious,” a show of whimsical, off-color, and overwhelmingly bejeweled paintings, sculptures, and in-between objects. “Precious” was about kitsch and trash; it was supposed to be a big transcendent joke at the expense of the banality of modern visual culture. But haven’t the artists noticed it’s been years since anyone with even half a brain laughed at or just thought about flocked wallpaper and Last Suppers painted on velvet? I knew my grandmother’s taste was terrible when I was five years old; nowadays I pass her neo-Venetian coffeetable with its top of fake stones embedded in lucite without a snort. It could have starred in “Precious.” Comedians know subjects have to change with the times. Why not artists?
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