"[...] I abhor the supposition that exhibitions should be informative or, god forbid, educational. Is the work of Godard or Hitchcock or Beckett or Lecompte or Adams or Ashbery or Kiley or Gubaidulina or Serra or Koolhaas or Starck or Westwood or Cragg or Reed or Koons educational? These works, and all of their cousins, are full of ideas--bold, provocative, shuddering ideas-but do they teach us something?
We should never confuse the fact that cultural practices affect us, change us, stimulate us to think and see and hear and feel differently with the supposition that they teach us anything. Once something teaches you something, it thinks for you. This is a point that eludes even the promising young mess specialists and punk whippersnappers à la Obrist, who, for all of their bravado, continue obediently to inscribe their work in the service of the Big Idea. Rotton once said, 'I may not know much about music, but I know it ain't got nuffin' to do with chords?' Worth remembering."*
*Jeffrey Kipnis, "Who's afraid of gift-wrapped kazoos? Dedicated to David Whitney," in What Makes a Great Exhibition, ed. Paula Marincola (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, 2006), pp. 97-98.
