Nothing represents gentrification of the Bowery like the New Museum.I finally visited a few weeks ago, and just noticed that an upcoming show will let you watch drugged young women sleep, as in the photo, left. [via C-Monster; photo Henrike Schulte]
I'll leave you to figure out how close this idea can get to creepy without crossing the line. I'm sure that, being under the control of art professionals, no harm will come to the volunteers -- beyond the YouTube video evidence of their nightmares, blurted confessions, and other nocturnal emissions. And if you're squeamish about being part of a formal exercise, I'm sure you can still find drugged people sleeping nearby, outside the museum, for free. But that's not art.
When I visited the museum, right, nothing struck me so much as how hard it tries to convey that "contemporary art museum" atmosphere, like the Guggenheim, where the art can seem secondary to what it really sells: a chance to share the world weary attitude borne of having too much money on too small a planet, and skipping from one exclusive island of wealth to another, each different but basically the same. From the ticket lines to the luxury condo view on top, to the work of Elizabeth Peyton, who specializes in paintings of jaded pretty people -- everything's tuned to exude that empty, shiny atmosphere.So yeah, I liked the New Museum better before it got rich and moved to the Bowery.
People who tout the architecture of the building -- like those who admire the luxury condo tower Blue, nearby on the Lower East Side -- not only ignore the context, but the purpose of these buildings. The purpose of Blue is to house very rich people; it basks in the glow of history while it helps erase it.
And the purpose of the big new New Museum? I didn't really sense one, beyond the desire for a higher profile, though I'd guess it fits right in with Blue and the luxury condo boom, and is helping turn another unique corner of New York into just another bland island in the global archipelago of wealth.
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