Thomas Schütte’s exhibition at ARC opened with a series of teller’s windows reminiscent of those found at the entrance to a theater or stadium. No transactions or exchanges occur at these openings, however, and ironically, they make the facades into which they are set appear exaggeratedly empty. Entitled Controllo, 1988, this piece is like a ghostly shell—the site of some blind inquisition. At the border between two scarcely distinguishable spaces, these windows suggest a model for the act of criticism.

Beyond this first passageway a single row of maquettes betokens an anecdotal disposition.

After twenty-plus years of thumbing its collective nose at French art and society, Presence Panchounette, the Bordeaux-based group of artist-provocateurs made up of one former-boxer-turned-pedicurist (Frédéric Roux), one former-auto-racer-turned-secondhand-furniture-dealer (Michael Ferrière), and one still-working journalist at Radio Montecarlo (Jean-Yves Gros), has come up with the ultimate insult: the decision to disband. In a word, they say, the contemporary scene is boring, and even if the rest of their generation has been comfortably co-opted, they have no desire to join the institutional