@eff.art.blog But none of the curators are claiming newness (at least not in the press release). Lisa Phillips *suggests* this, but she didn’t put together the show. Many of the artists in this show are close to 33. You’d expect most of those artists to have shown in a gallery or two. I’m not saying Cotter is wrong to want what he wants, I just don’t think it was necessarily inline with the express goals of the show. Generational sorts by age, not by exhibition history.

I’m elated that people are getting worked up about this, and, after tasting one little nibble of really new stuff being exhibited at a major museum, are saying, “More!” But I am not going to praise any curator for putting on a show that sets itself up to be something really “new” and then mostly perpetuates the status quo.

I’m afraid you’re right Paddy when you point out that this generation’s inclination is to embrace the market.
But I don’t think that’s a neutral judgement thing, like it was the Pictures generation’s inclination to explore the politics of representation- because the embrace of the market is not neutral, and one of its consequences is the steady loss of any value of art not associated with monetary value. It’s a bad thing. And I guess we’re hoping, the voices in this comment section at least, for a show to come along that represents thoughtful art that is not so ambivalent about the whole economic mechanism facilitating the filling of galleries with objects. If history is the propaganda of the victors, as they say, is art history the propaganda of the collectors? One could argue that Younger than Jesus functions that way.

I understand that museums have to get fatty donations to exist, and to do that they have to show work by commercially successful artists and appease their donors-collectors. But can’t there be a little balance? Can’t somebody go out on a limb and show some work that we haven’t already seen at all the big art fairs?

“It is very unusual for an artist to work out of direct experience rather than out of the history of art. It requires building a form language almost ‘from scratch.’”

http://www.throughtheflower.org/page.php?p=12&n=2

Just a thought, and not a pleasant one.

As for the market, it may be true that there’s already validation for many of those artists, but the press release never makes any claims that they were seeking those without commercial recognition. In fact, I’m arguing that what defines this generation more than others, has been their willingness to embrace the market.

In any event, “an echo chamber of boredoms and neurotic repetitions” seems harsh for this show. Like any large survey show it has its faults, but overall I liked the work. My main complaint has been that you can’t see it.