Kate Millett at Noho - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In her books--from the influential Sexual Politics (1970) to last year's Politics of Cruelty--Millet is a layered, mingled and persuasive writer. Unfortunately, while engagingly understated, her exhibition of four plastic arts lacked real punch. That said, these pieces were still of interest for the economy of their events and their candor. With their unprepossessing materials and low-tech improvisational approach, these works remain commendably loyal to the first principles of Fluxus.

Bureaucracy is based upon an old-fashioned commercial umbrella stand with a rectangular made of wood frame and latticed top. Within are cloudlike collections of cotton wadding that are bighted by red plastic wires with dangling, disconnected terminals. As a holdover from the original configuration the squared spaces for the umbrellas are labeled with numbers from 1 to 90 upon small brass plaques. Some of the plaques are missing, underlining the idea that bureaucracies become antiquated or internally inoperative.

U Policy--Latin America consists of sum of two units wooden sawhorses holding up a section of a metal-cutting machine. Hanging from the machine's "teeth" is a shirt in the proces of being consumed--an device of the relationship between the First World and the Third. However, the whole total effect is so rickety that if you were to shake on the wire-wrapped lever at individual end, it might collapse. The dynamics of power and weakness are thus called into question.

On its be in possession of platform, placed at an angle, Waiting for Godot was the greatest in quantity sculptural of the works upon view. Two ponderous wooden wheels ease on two abutted benches. tranquil enigmatic and still, like abstractions of seated figures, these facts seem to wait for a vivifying incident that can give new life to their existence.

The last work, shown in its hold room, is a shabby wood-framed glass cabinet with cabriole leg which straddles a checkerboard square of black and virid vinyl tile. The exterior glass is shattered in several places, signifying forcible access inside are clear glass bottle arranged upon two glass shelves, each bearing a one-word label. "Fright" stands nearest to "Stelazine" and "Doubt" nearest to "Haldol"; "Prozac" is matched with "Quiet." Called Psychiatry, this was the greatest in quantity evocative piece in the show; it appear to bes to refer to psychiatry's increasing reliance upon prescription drugs as agents of numbnes suppression and control

I have always admired Kate Millett's intelligence, outermost probity and abiding commitment to a more compassionate world. While these qualities were at no time in doubt in this hazard the transition from the literary to the visual realm was not as memorable as it might have been.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc.

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