Let's Only Entertain You

Takashi Murakami creates a disturbing image of childhood animation gone porno

Details

On view through November 18; 305-375-3000

Miami Art Museum, 101 W Flagler St.

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More About

• Philippe Vergne
• Marshall McLuhan
• Takashi Murakami
• Minako Nishimaya
• Visual Arts

Art can be related to entertainment, but it's wrong to assume that it intrinsically entertains. Art can teach us something, make us think, or simply touch us deeply. I don't know whether to think Vergne's purported complicity is the result of impotence, ignorance, or bad faith. But his admission of surrender to an omnipotent media could take him to a very dangerous place, where his own distinctions "outside" and "inside" wouldn't matter anymore.

No wonder "Let's Entertain" barely touches violence. Perhaps violent art is deemed too disagreeable, breaking the show's bubbly ambiance. Symbolic, then, is a piece by Minako Nishimaya, Dressing-up Room, a wood-paneled Barbie-esque environment filled with Rococo ornaments and flowery motifs. The empty space contains distorted mirrors, a perfect metaphor for guilt -- a childish aversion to truth.