CHICAGO — I dislike the expression “You do you.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead wrote an op-ed for the New York Times back in 2015 that explains many of my reasons far better than I ever could, but basically it comes down to the narcissism of selfie culture and the discussion-ending aspect of tautological phrases in general. A contributor to the article’s comments section — yes, I read them; they’re fascinating — didn’t think that Whitehead really understood that adolescents, herself included, actually used the saying in reaction to somebody doing something a little odd but ultimately harmless.

That sort of gentle acceptance seems cool to me, so I will attempt here to use “You do you” in the way of kids these days, and in particular as a frame for thinking about a handful of otherwise unrelated shows currently up in Chicago galleries. Art has long been a place where the very weird belongs — and here I refer to people as much as objects and actions — and may it ever be so. I’m talking about Fluxus scores and hot pink dogs and EVA & ADELE, the couple who for the past 30 years have comported themselves as a bald, heavily made-up, genderless living artwork from the future. But art is also a place for the more subtly eccentric, the stuff that’s a little bit odd but ultimately harmless, and that can structure entire bodies of work for years on end. I speak here of the artist who paints gingham patterns one square at a time for decades; who commits to making 101 duck decoys that will never fool any fowl; who writes books out of thread and metal leaf and rock. We don’t really bat an eye at any of this in the art world, but maybe we should. A little bit of weirdness goes a long way.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.