"The real question, the interesting part, will come when I start to admit that the bewildering uniformity of neo-Pop parodies of perfect ease carries something of an ideological order, which has more to do with CULTIVATING identity than cruh-teaking it. Until then, the distinction between art and exhibition design will be really trivial."
--Carl Skelton (1)

While events such as Rem Koolhaass Soho Prada store opening and the Guggenheims Armani show appear as the catalyst for the collapse of High Art, Commercialism, and Design, they are merely topical results of a much larger and insidious cultural shift, one greater than any of the single institutes or individuals involved. As Carl Skelton notes, "Guggenheimlichkeit is just as fundamental to the phenomenon of breakfast cereal as it is to any oxymoronic contemporary museum." Whether its in the Upper East Side or Chelsea, the seemingly neutral trope of exhibition design, in a mix of "post-industrial guilt" and transparent irony, has been used to franchise museums while making the products within peripheral at best. In her article "Growing Pains" in Art in America critic Eleanor Heartney remarks that "After what seems an unceasing round of blockbuster exhibitions&one wonders if museums are becoming too much like that quintessential American industrythe movies."(2)

Guggenheimlichkeit is the theme of White Boxs Six Feet Under 2002 Summer Series. Opening Thursday 11 July, six different sets of curators and artists will explore Guggenheimlichkeit and the role of the Museum each week. While the Gallery is impenetrable to the public, the artists will appropriate the view from the outside window as they wish. Above all, the artists and curators involved are critiquing Guggenheimlichkeit while also accounting for their own complicity within such a system in order to map out spaces of its very resistance. The artists see Guggenheimlichkeit not as a fixed narrative but one with excesses, ruptures, and inconsistencies that must be explored and even utilized.

1 "What Guggenheimlichkeit is" by Carl Skelton ©2001 Carl Skelton. Text appeared first in Cabinet Magazine. Online
http://www.ultratopia.com/guggenheimlichkeit/index.html
2 "Growing Pains" Eleanor Hearney Art in America

THE ARTISTS:

18-24 July (Opening 18 July, 6-8)
François Bucher
New York 2002
This piece re-enacts historical revolutionary text and appropriates it into new space as art. Bucher proposes that the space of art provides a site of resistance, unfreezing history in the present and sustaining its resonance.
Curated by Jose Roca.

25-31 July (Opening 25 July, 6-8)
Carissa Rodriguez + Gardar Eide Einarsson
Untitled (Poster) 2002
As installation calling for increased personal autonomy as reaction to and resistance against recent shifts in power, capital, and attention that have restructured relationships between artists, art works, viewers, and institutions.
Curated by Jennifer Farrell.

1-7 August (Opening 1 August, 6-8)
The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)
Workspheres
The CUP has created a municipal demonstration project pertaining to MOMAs recent workforce policies and relocation, appropriating materials from the MOMA Workspheres exhibition.
Curated by Yates McKee.

8-15 August (Opening 8 August, 6-8)
Pedro Diniz Reis
False Opening
A video installation by this Portuguese artist examines the site specificity of museum spaces and the desire instilled within the viewer to embody that space.
Curated by Hernani Marcelino.

5-10 September (Opening 5 September, 6-8)
Dolores Segwaay
Airing the Belly at Bilbao
Images and text loosely portray a drive through the Basque Country with a radio broadcast of an ETA attack while approaching Puppy, Gehry, Armani and an ill young girl beside Yves Kleins fountain.
Curated by Ralph Whitefin.

11-18 September (Opening 11 September, 6-8)
Ayreen Anastas + Rene Gabri
Radio-Active
White Box serves as the interface to a radio station with programming related to or engaged with 11 September, with responses by figures both within and outside the artistic and cultural community.
Curated by Tanya Leighton.

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