Barbara Rose
TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERSTARS
There isn't anything that doesn't go now. The artist
community is completely dissolved and artists· aren't even talk–
ing to each other. They're all geared to the public, at least intel–
lectually. The Pop artists exploded the thing ... Pollock wanted
to become a celebrity and he did. He got kicked out of the 21
Club many times and de Kooning
IS
living like Elizabeth
Taylor. Everybody wants to know who he's sleeping with, about
the house he's building and everything. He has no private life.
But finally it was Andy Warhol. He has become the most fam–
ous. He's a household word. He ran together all the desires of
artists to become celebrities, to make money, to have a good
time, all the Surrealist ideas. Andy Warhol has made it easy.
-Ad Reinhardt, unpublished monologue
In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
-Andy Warhol
Eight Contemporary Artists·
is an exhibition of new works by three
American, four European and one Australian conceptualists, whose common
premise appears to be that art should provide minimal visual stimulation, a lack
presumably compensated for by the professed profundity of its cerebral con–
tent. Normally one would easily overlook such a show, which is as bland and
tepid as its deliberately non-committal title;
however,Eight Contemporary Artists
is significant because it is the most extensive exhibition of contemporary art
held by the Museum of Modern Art since 1970. And as the widely acknowl–
edged arbiter of current taste, the Museum of Modern Art continues to serve
as a telling barometer of prevailing standards and attitudes. That a show of this
nature should take place within its exclusive precincts represents the degree to
which the MOMA has modified its relatively conservative position. Until now,
1. Eight Contemporary Artists,
an exhibition of work by Vito Acconci, Alighiero Boetti,
Daniel Buren, Hanne Darboven,Jan Dibbets, Robert Hunter, Brice Marden, Dorothea
Rockburne, at the Museum of Modern Art, October 9, 1974-January 5, 1975.
