Word: whatsit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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First there was pop, then the trend setters opted for op, but as the new acquisitions show at Manhattan's Whitney Museum demonstrates, still another category is called for. Old-line Geometric Abstractionist Ad Reinhardt suggests "ob"-from object-and it embraces any object, image of one, or whatsit that might amuse museum directors or titillate collectors. Examples of ob art offered at the Whitney include...
...here come the freaks. Way down there is the midget, way up there is "the tallest man in the world." Behind that bush stands the bearded lady and over in the cutlery department the sword-swallower is just about to show his guts. But say, what's that whatsit wriggling down the midway: that long damp thing with the pale-green skin and the pollywog eyes and the squirmy little mouth...
...Swifties were barely buried and done with when the elephant gags came along. And no sooner had those grey flat footsteps faded than the whatsit jokes took over, and what's black and white and red all over turned out to be no newspaper, after all, but a bleeding...