The New Museum's generational Younger Than Jesus very much impressed me, even though I had major doubts before seeing the show. I worried this was going to be another Unmonumental or 2008 Biennial, but I was wrong.
The New Museum's layout perfectly housed the exhibition. Not too sprawling, but spacious enough so it didn't feel overly contained, the artists' work spanned 4 floors. We started on floor #5 in the Museum as Hub portion called the Interactive Timeline. I recommend this approach. On the wall in neon printing paper rainbow, there is a timeline of transformative events from the past 33 years. Visitors can suggest events that didn't make the timeline in a transparent plexi-glas suggestion box. On the opposite side of the room zines and various other paper booklets are lined out on a table. DIY-style, you can pick them up and thumb through. Books stand guard on a shelf over two computers with links to different sites and articles. And best of all, in the far corner alcove of the room, a video plays, consisting of media coverage of the past 33 years, informational blips, and clips from music videos. Think "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the OJ Simpson car chase, 9-11 narrated by Diane Sawyer, and the original theatrical trailer for Kids. The juxtaposition (or is it a mere relationship?) of art, rock and roll, and senseless violence and terrorism puts the work on the 4 floors below into a cohesive, yet expansive context. Whether or not we want to admit it, our generation more than any other, thank to technology, has experienced life in an increasingly similar way.
As for the show, the single piece that stands out for me: the above sculpture by AIDS-3D. The black monolith calls 60's minimalist sculptures by John McCracken to mind, not to mention the creepily transcendant black monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. AIDS-3D puts a Generation-Y-tastic twist on the black rock with the neon letters of everyone's favorite cyberspeak, OMG. This contemporizes the McCracken rip-off and critiques Kubrick's triptastic film at once in a clever but still eerie way.
Jakub Julian Ziolkowski's paintings impressed me the most. His influences seem to range from Hieronymous Bosch to Where's Waldo. I could have spent much more time examining his clever and beautiful work. The sarcastically precious and intricately crafted cartoonish rendering of war imagery and the characters that compose that iconography left me feeling haunted and foolish. Foolish because of the past 8 years in which our country sends our own to fight a war for what seems like intricately crafted and cartoonish reasons.
Anyway, my analysis aside, the show is up until June, and everyone should take a look. Art is turning the corner from the junk-trash-shit-on-a-stick variety, and the conceptualism present in this sampling is the perfect refreshment the art world needs. Kind of like an ice-cold Diet Pepsi.
