Word: soulfulness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...this struggle for the soul of American art is mapped in all its fitful chaos in the Whitney Museum's mammoth, frenetic show, "The American Century: Art and Culture 1950-2000," part two of a yearlong survey, on view through Feb. 13. The first installment of the retrospective, covering 1900 to 1950, was all about American artists striving to find their identity in the shadow of European masters--and finally making the leap with the figure-breaking canvases of Pollock. The sequel shows the rampantly imaginative shattering of that identity from Pollock onward, shuttling at high speed between the spiritually...
There was no lack of experiment and soul searching in these years. While Warhol was spinning out his sops to celebrities in sycophantic portraits and the swooning talkfests that filled his gossip sheet Interview, much of American art seemed largely earnest--as if it were a vast machine spitting out proof after proof of the solution to what art should mean as war, protest, the surge of feminism and the pulse of disco played themselves out on the nation's stage...
...telling that none of them are in this show. Lisa Phillips, curator of the exhibition, manages to mimic the raucous energy of a half-century of American art in these overstuffed rooms (and frequently to confusing effect), yet it's clear who she thinks won the struggle for the soul of that art. Despite a token gallery or two thrown in at the end of the show that seem little more than a grab bag of hot names in the '90s, the real finale to the Whitney's survey comes just before these rooms...
...Tassel, an easy prey for the burly lads of Sleepy Hollow. In Burton's revision and Depp's incarnation, Crane is a Manhattan constable sent upriver to solve a murder; predating Poe's Auguste Dupin by several decades, he is America's first detective. He is also a troubled soul, carrying literal scars from childhood and memories that roil his sleep. So handsome, so haunted, he proves irresistible to this Katrina (Christina Ricci). Yet Depp bumbles and stumbles, just like the old Ichabod; he is the hero and the comic relief in one tightly wound package. Doesn't always work...
...SOUL MATES The danger of heart disease is a family affair. Women whose husbands suffer a heart attack or undergo open-heart surgery turn out to share many of their husbands' cardiovascular risk factors. Among them: high body mass, smoking and little exercise. A report unveiled at an American Heart Association meeting last week indicates that many spouses don't realize they share a high-risk lifestyle. The implications: doctors need to develop a family approach to prevention and treatment; spouses should keep informed...