This website infers that 98% of art is trash, but I do believe that something - however miniscule it may be - can be learned from just about anything. I guess it just depends on how much time you have. It was with this attitude that I walked into the all-star, Shaquille-O’Neal-curated, complete mess that is “Size Does Matter” at the Flag Art Foundation.
Even writing a review of this show at first seemed like a cheap shot. I mean honestly. The press release lists his accomplishments as “Kazaam” and the “Kazaam soundtrack”. An article in New York Magazine talks about how he selected 66 works from a notebook of over 200 after a basketball game, which really isn’t curating at all, it’s just uneducated narrowing down from a thumbnail image. The whole “Shaq” thing was obviously a publicity effort, but one (I presume) aimed primarily at introducing a different audience to contemporary art, not at making a buck (there is no entrance fee). So at the very least, I do support the intention.
I did learn 2 things that I doubt neither the artists represented nor the curators* intended.
1. Whatever you want to call it – curating, selecting, arranging, collecting, hanging, displaying, narrowing down - is a powerful thing. For better or for worse the sum is always larger than the parts, no matter how loud those parts are. By showing mostly works that had to do with scale, it reduced everything to “wow that’s really big”. When scale wasn’t a factor, I questioned (more so than if the work were alone in a room) why it was in the show – and found a disappointing similarity between the outcasts: hot naked girls and sports.
2. Audience. If you put a warped mirror in a gallery, I will look at the craftsmanship, wonder about the materials, furrow my brow and look real close and then walk slowly back with my hand on my chin before pulling out my notebook and scratching down a few notes. If you put that same mirror in a funhouse, I’ll just try to find the most ridiculous reflecting position. The audience in the gallery with me were Shaq lovers – more interested in using the sculptures for coat racks while they took photos from the an angle to appear as if they were holding giant boobs in a painting (seriously).
It has now been 2 weeks since my visit there and I realize that the show did do something significant for me. I never before saw a Chuck Close as “huge” – I was too busy looking at the technique. And that Richard Phillips painting "Michelle Angelo" with the huge boobs now looks pretty dang ridiculous. I mean honestly... THEY'RE HUGE BOOBS! Who paints that?! So as much as I like looking at art alone in an empty gallery, I decided there’s a lot I can learn by eavesdropping, whether the visitors are art snobs, basketball fans, intellectuals, or 4 year olds.
*In my mind, Glenn Fuhrman and Stephanie Roach ACTUALLY curated the show since they chose Shaq and the 200 works from which he based his decisions.