Thoughts on Three Shows, Part Two: Beautiful Losers

February 18th, 2005 · No Comments · Los Angeles, Writing

Sure, Orange County Museum of Art‘s largely fawned-over Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture
has its moments, but mostly, its an annoyingly consistent exhibition. A stylesheet for an aesthetic that has its predictable screaming fanbase; its chorus of hip young whoopers who cheer along with each variation of the same tired, tragi-beautiful anarchist theme. It’s Orange County at its slickest, punkiest, rubber-stamped best.

Looky there! It’s a real live skate ramp in the courtyard! And just like a trashy convenience store, there’s a room with a sign meant to screen out the under-eighteens, which only provides the young hipsters with prurient pleasure at sneaking past it. Really, who is enforcing this ridiculousness? OCMA’s museum educators?

This show functions as a dictionary of cool, a connect-the-dots guide complete with the shoes, the boards, the music, the videos, the dirty comic books. I’m sorry, was there a little art mixed into the bunch? I didn’t notice, maybe I was too distracted by all the shiny stickered gewgaws.

Category: Los Angeles · Writing

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