![]() ![]() The ephemeral performance craze makes a critic's job ridiculously easy, because, existentially, there is really no difference between attending or not attending any given performance. ![]() I mean, how many hits can you recall from the most recent Performa? It is a flat-out victory for a medium that was derogated when it was truly revolutionary back in the 1970s and celebrated now that it is just about any artist acting out just about any experience, to be lost to posterity as soon as the curtain goes down. These days every artist, even painters in love with paint, feels obliged to add a performance arrow to the career quiver in order to raise his or her art-world profile above sea level. It might seem incredible to have arrived at a point where I have to defend the very existence of painting and sculpture, but that moment alighted when my very significant other and I walked into the Whitney Museum elevator last week, pressed 4 and were told by some random woman in the lift that "floor 4 is closed this afternoon, because there is a performance going on." Getting off at 3, I espied my beloved leafing through the Whit's mini-telephone book of scheduled biennial performances, checking off a couple of "must see" shows, for which a separate admission is charged.
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