Date: Mon, 5 Feb 96 14:46:25 EST
Subject: Re: dry-hump: was public (fwd)


Michael you just recounted the history of such places as PS1, Artist Space,
The new Museum, The alternative Museum, etc in the 1970's.  If one goes
back to the 1930's its the history of the Museum of Modern Art and the
Whitney Museum.

Saul Ostrow
Art Editor Bomb Magazine
Co-editor of the Journal Lusitania
General Editor for  "Critical Voices"


What's being offered today? I think the Whitney and the Modern are direct 
targets in this critique of an art establishment. I hardly think the other 
alternative spaces such as the New Museum, (whose lame offerings of pabulum
could be called anything but an alternative) provide anything but that sort of
legitimization from which newer undercurrents could benefit by resisting. 
Anything that is not part of the establishment today, but aspires to a greater
role in the cultural community may be doomed to the mediocrity that has ossified
places like the Whitney and newer venues. I will qualify this by saying that of
all the New York City museums, the Whitney is my favorite, but in feeling the 
way I do, I still keep a critical eye cocked on it and am often disappointed and
embarrassed for it by its offerings.   


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