Fresh Cream
From its plastic pillow packaging to its passages of almost unreadable peach-colored type on white paper, this tall, skinny book is no stranger to the high-concept bias of contemporary art in the '90s.Fresh Creamdemonstrates the continuing bull market for extreme depictions of the body, retreads of once subversive strategies, and work heavily informed by advertising imagery.The 100 artists in this second installment of a biennial publication (Creamwas the first) were chosen by 10 curators from cities as far-flung as Moscow, London, Bangkok, and New York. Asked to select individuals "who have emerged internationally since about the mid-1990s or have yet to emerge at all," the curators chose such widely known video and installation artists as Doug Aitken, Vanessa Beecroft, Jason Rhoades, and Paul McCarthy, as well as those whose identifies would stump the most dedicated art-journal reader.With so many video, performance, and installation works that beg to be seen in real time and space, this book is a poor substitute for an exhibition. Based on the evidence at hand--a dozen or fewer photographs representing each artist's output and brief descriptions by the curators--the cream only rarely rises to the top.For this reader, the exceptions include Uta Barth's blurry photographic glimpses of what we see when we're focusing on something else; Doris Salcedo's eloquent furniture memorials to the sufferings of her fellow Colombians; Janet Cardiff's unsettling sound pieces; Annika Eriksson's quietly subversive community-participation events; Heri Dono's politically charged versions of traditional Japanese art forms; and witty paintings by Joanne Greenbaum, Laura Owens, and Elizabeth Peyton.--Cathy Curtis