The enthusiasm with which some critics have greeted “Picturing ‘Greatness,’” the photography exhibition organized by artist-photographer Barbara Kruger, is the best example of the swoon for anything that seems new at the Museum of Modern Art.[1] Anything that looks as if it breaks with the past has become cause for celebration. Even if shows are terrible or ho-hum, they are encouraged as instruments in the overthrow of an ossified regime. Questionable work is praised for fear the place will backslide into more shows about formalist experiment and great men. Denounce old MOMA and crown the new. People have stopped looking at art; they’re reviewing the institution. They’re pushing a program of sweeping change, even if this only means circling back to traditions long ago discredited.
Andy Grundberg, photography critic for The New York Times, set the tone in his early review of the Kruger show: “The result is a huge success. For the museum’s audience, it offers a chance to see firsthand how a new generation of artists and critics is responding to photographs as cultural evidence. For the museum’s photography department, it marks what one hopes is a new era of openness and experimentation.” Gary Indiana of The Village Voice also heaped oodles of praise on the show. It must be Kruger’s presence that dazzles some critics, as though a young art star working from outside the museum guaranteed radical change and bold intelligence.
It didn’t. Except for being a welcome attempt at a
