A friend read a review -- I assume A Spectacle With a Message, Roberta Smith, NYT -- and requested a report.
The show does feel like a spectacle -- the huge, unpolished vitrines could just as well hold the remains of a crashed alien armada. And a few things look like they came from space, like the hanging garden of ghostly sunflowers (below right) Smith calls "mysterious creature-plants."
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Above left, a leaden barn full of leftover Nazi salutes. Above right, the giant ghost flowers probe cracked earth.
In spite of the scale of the show and the huge amount of calculation and manufacturing that had to go into it -- not to mention the eight or so guards who add a slight Fort Knox feel -- it doesn't feel overblown, and some of the pieces still have the raw energy Kiefer seems to shoot for. The show, at Gagosian's 24th St. outpost, closes this Saturday.
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Above left, a nice ad hoc roof on a twig mountain at the bottom. Above right, an exploding glass shard wedding dress, raw as student work.
