Curated by Judith Blackall, Pippa Coles, and Alessandro Vincentelli

Behold the corny soothsayers: Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, who traced the darker fringes of American life with results prophetic and clichéd, have garnered a substantial show at BALTIC. The curatorial team has selected more than eighty works stretching over five decades, including celebrated tableaux like The Non-War Memorial, 1970. The Kienholzes gave us orchestra seats to death, loneliness, furtive sex, and war, but their lesser works have little more impact than a picked-over flea market: curious for sure, but nothing to take home. Nevertheless, given what’s going on in the world, perhaps revisiting the best of the Kienholzes will be the hair of the dog.

Travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Dec. 16, 2005–Mar. 5, 2006.

— Ronald Jones