Murray Guy

8/16/2013 Updated review

I wanted to update this review, not to change the star count (this is a solidly good gallery, maybe not every show is five stars but definitely in the upper range) but because the character of the gallery has changed a bit in the last year and a half. It used to focus on conceptual work of mid- or late-career artists but more recently it has been showing a lot of younger artists and become a magnet for smart and cool stuff. So it's a good place to visit if you want to learn about art trends. Recent exhibtions have included a really great installation by Sergei Tcherepnin (sp?) a theatrical sound artist, and a group show called "Screens" that featured different sculptural treatments in monitors, putting them in mannequins or shopping bags or shop vitrines, a 1994 Jon Kessler installation using a motorzied billboard apparatus.. there was even a work in the bathroom, which I didn't realize when I went to use it. Surprise! In one corner there was a video mashup of actors in war movies saying "shit" "shit" "shit" and in the toilet, a laminated postcard with a photo of George W. Bush that circled and bobbed as I urinated on it. When I finished up I checked the date of the work on the checklist and it was from 2006--of course. Political work like that gets so dated so quickly. Couldn't they have at least updated it for the current installation? Bush isn't exactly a controversial figure in the art world anyway. It would be much more interesting to piss on Obama.