Skin Fruit?

The other night I attended the opening of Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection, curated by Jeff Koons, on view at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (Hell, Yes!). Having heard terribly negative things flitting about on Twitter (second-hand of course, via my friend. Statements made on Twitter have a tendency to ring as truisms, unfortunately before the fact), I was looking forward to a good showing of terrible art. And indeed some of it is quite awful. But much of it is not awful at all. The problem with this show is that it has a leveling effect on the art displayed, reducing everything to a base (and basic) level.

As not-too-subtly alluded to by the exhibition title, Skin Fruit is about sex and sensuality, and well, let's just come right out and say it: poo. If there is something that could possibly be construed as abject or morbid, it is. But whereas the New Museum's Unmonumental had a similar quality and feel to it (for example, both shows include(d) the work of Urs Fischer), there the work was decidedly UN-monumental, whereas here, monumentality and garishness appear to be mandatory. There are a few understated works throughout the museum, but they are unfortunately overshadowed. "There is supposed to be a lot of genitalia in this show," my friend warned me as I sighted a half-naked alien boy by Takashi Murakami (not a bad work in and of itself, and actually quite a surprise for me and my conception of Murakami's art). "Not that there's anything wrong with that," I hear my inner Seinfeld tell me. But an apropos warning it was.

Sometimes the references to the sexual are well done. The issue is really that it seems as if Koons has selected each work for its connection to a kind of transgressiveness, abjectness, or dirtiness that does not do credit to all of the individual artists' projects. A Cindy Sherman (1992, I believe) in which a mud-covered Sherman's head becomes the left (sinister) eye of another face, simultaneously converts her face into a vulva; her mouth, with bared teeth, the vagina dentata; and a wound on her arm the "wound" of the female's genitals. This work could easily be slotted into a history of the abject (a traditional reading of these Sherman works), but, importantly, Sherman does not picture any nether-regions whatsoever. Her exploration of the way in which bodies are coded and read as sensual conflates vision with a kind of rape. The mud that covers her face codes her as abject, but it also protects her, blocking vision and serving as a second skin.

Kiki Smith's works, of which there are several on view, are unfortunately placed in the context of other works that make them seem to be mostly about the profane and demonic. While Smith is certainly interested in the way in which people (mostly women) can portrayed as evil, she is definitely extremely interested in the holy nature of the human body in pain. Smith's work is also generally talked about in terms of her relationship to the abject, for example, her long bronze unrolled intestine is quite obviously a reference to a line of shit, but in transforming this trace of the body into bronze, she memorializes it and turns it into a relic. The latter essential elements of Smith's work are somewhat lost in this exhibition. Similarly, the fact that a Smith work of a woman crouching on a wall with her hair hanging down is partially about the ways in which women have been treated or positioned as evil (see her Lilith work), is obscured by placing it near a truly gigantic Roberto Cuoghi sculpture of an Assyrian demon that, at least according to the wall label, is partially to be seen as a representation of the end of American dominance.

Unsurprisingly works by John Bock, Nathalie Djurberg, and Paul McCarthy (and surprisingly even Paul Chan) also seem to have all been selected by Koons for their connections to the abject and/or orgiastic sexuality. And the numerous Chris Ofilis? Just google "Chris Ofili" and "Sensation" and you'll figure out how his talented artist unfortunately is made to fit in (although to Koons's credit, he has also selected multiple blue paintings by Ofili that cannot be connected to that famous scatalogical controversy).

It's not that Koons's selection is de facto poor. Koons (and his obsessive attention to detail) is an artist I respect for his focus on machinic craft and the idea of compulsion. Koons has indeed isolated an important nasty undercurrent in much art in this show. His own exploration of the kitsch nature of 18th-century Rococo sexual tropes shows that he is interested in the transformation of this theme through time. The problem resides in how the theme comes to define the works, setting them up as illustrative examples. They fit too neatly into the framework, which anchors them instead of encouraging them to reveal their nuances.

Nevertheless, some works in particular transcend the show's stifling contextual box. Christiana Soulou has a striking series of delicate drawings that gently explores the connections between bodies, clothing, and dance. Smith's Untitled (Skin), with its metal repeated squares with their skin impressions, is a touching riposte to her father's Minimalism. Meanwhile, David Altmejd is represented by Giant. Although Altmejd's work is generally strong, this work seems outlandish. I cannot however decide if it is truly terrible or sheer genius: its styrofoam, mirrored, glittered form is crawling with stuffed squirrels. Altmejd is often discussed in terms of his creation of a fantastical otherworld in either the distant past or the far future in which there are only remnants of now long-gone civilizations. Here the squirrels serve up a dash of humor, undercutting the seriousness of the decaying (again abject) quality of the figure.

One piece that stood out as particularly fascinating was Pawel Althamer's Schedule of the Crucifix (2005). For this piece, people who have volunteered periodically go behind a small screen, change clothes into the vestments that many people might associate with Jesus (a loincloth and crown of thorns) and climb up onto a crucifix, held up by some straps and their own muscles, and and seated on a bicycle seat (hidden when the people are seated). The volunteers are supposed to stay in the position of Christ on the cross as long as they can, and then descend. Looking up at this piece, I immediately thought it was a lifesize wax sculpture, a kind of easy, kitsch representation of a venerable religious tradition. However, then I saw the figure twitch and adjusted my interpretation: it had to be a strange animatronic plastic figure, in which Jesus was moved by hidden machines and computer processing chips; a literal deus ex machina. "Decidedly creepy," I thought. But then I realized it was a real person. Someone living. Breathing. Having difficulty holding the pose, his muscles had begun to move involuntarily. This touching performance humbly makes each person the figure of God on Earth. Living, flesh. The miracle that was promised and finally made real. The descent and reascent of different people ennobles the individual and brings to life something that many cynical New Yorkers (and beyond) often easily dismiss as myth. No simple laudation of Christianity or mysticism, Althamer's work asks the viewer to empathize with another human being--not one specific human being, but each singular one--and to think of him or herself as both suffering and divine.