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11.28.11: culture blotter {mgmt and maurizio cattelan @ the guggenheim}

we had every reason - okay, many reasons - to imagine that the tail end of our annual flurry of autumn concerts would be a spectacular, dragon-kite tail end. a stegosaurus tail end! our friend lesley spent a good deal of our pre-show mexican food and margaritas (also auspicious!) telling us about how amon tobin at the brooklyn masonic temple had flipped up the top of her head, scooped out her brains, and speckled the tri-state area with them; maybe this show (precious alt-electronic wesleyan hipsters playing music surrounded and inspired by "all," a massive, 128-piece, museum-wide mobile which serves as a retrospective of italian artist maurizio cattelan's career) would be like that show (we saw matthew barney's cremaster installations at the guggenheim a decade ago, and they had that sort of promise)!













the cattelan pieces were interesting if not always excellent, but seeing them in a single (and singular) place was unexpectedly moving. the peoplewatching, as one would imagine, was fantastic; i'd like to meet the person who kissed the wall in the bathroom upstairs, and perhaps introduce them to the twelve-year-old mgmt superfan who tried to chat me up at the end of the show. mgmt...i'll need to see again: i have to believe they're capable of more than that show, and on that note, i might want to kick them in the shins. i remain enthusiastic about nights of music at museums, particularly when i know i have a brand-new skeleton suit waiting for me at home. maximalism, internets! it keeps us on our toes.