September 20, 2007
Aaron Young's Greeting Card
Above is a view of Aaron Young's performance-cum-action painting Greeting Card, which took place on Monday night at the Park Avenue Armory on the Upper East Side. As art, and especially as a comment on Abstract Expressionist painting, I think the work left something to be desired. As an event, as pure spectacle, it succeeded brilliantly. To see perfectly coiffed Chanel-clad Upper East Side matrons in breathing masks; to gawk at Tom Ford, Sigourney Weaver, and the R&B singer Usher; to experience ten motorcycles running, indoors, in frantic patterns; and to then stand around afterward, looking at the silhouettes of friends and colleagues highlighted by light shining through drifting smoke was—to say the least—unique. Click the picture to see four more views.
UPDATE, 9/21: Roberta Smith makes several valid points in today's review of the event in the New York Times: "If there was any doubt that we live in a reasonable facsimile of the Gilded Age, it disappeared Monday night during “Greeting Card,” Aaron Young’s enormous paint-by-motorcycle spectacle in the vast, emptied-out drill hall of the Seventh Regiment Armory. [ ... ] As spectacle, “Greeting Card” was a bit thin and not as much fun as the anticipation. [ ... ] After “Greeting Card” is dismantled on Sunday night, Mr. Young will divide its 288 panels into individual paintings ranging in size from a single panel to as many as 150. These will then begin a second life as saleable works meant to hang on walls. Perhaps they will buy Mr. Young enough time to figure out a more profound way to make paintings or other kinds of art."