"Thomas Hirschorn"

At the Barbara Gladstone Gallery

review by Lee Klein

One small step for gallery goers one giant step for bullshit; that's a bit extreme; but, this artonaut having landed on planet Gladstone/ whether gladly or not; but, as a gadfly sent by a glad hand extended by telephone/ I did not know what to expect after Steve cannon said "you will like it."

Boy the whole gallery was en-wrapped in plastic bag with giant books and tin foil sculptures. It looks like someone I worked with a Greenpeace a decade ago did a lot more drugs afterwards and came up with this. It was referred to in the Time Out review of the exhibition as "Paleolithic" (by one of those critics who write so many reviews they probably hide their three dollar words inside of their shoes ). I guess this is a trend; when I went to Berlin recently with Christo on my mind what I saw instead was the Brandenburg gate wrapped in an advertisement (how derivative).

What of course comes to mind is George Dawes Green's Caveman's Valentine (whatever happened to the movie-straight to video). But this post futuristic explanation for continued wrapping ... please! They shouldn't have stopped at the reception desk they should have continued wrapping think of it is as Christmas season (wrap up Douglas Kelly and Christine Wang and every other schnook you can get your hands on). And then I say why didn't they just pick up the Unabomber's house and put it on a flat-bed truck and bring it to 22nd street instead of the Smithsonian; they could invite guest curators to decorate the inside of an exhibition within a exhibition within a space; hey that's the ticket! Writing this negatively I begin to feel sorry for the tin foil people the ephemeral statuary populate this instillation (the way I feel guilty for all the merchandise broken in action movies like its trashing was my doing).

2003 Lee Klein