“Stories of Almost Everyone”
Hammer Museum
A KIND OF POST-CONCEPTUAL malaise crept over me when, twenty minutes into viewing “Stories of Almost Everyone,” a group exhibition centered on the narratives that “accompany” objects, I found myself spending more time reading and rereading wall texts than looking at the works themselves. Of course, one could graft this overreliance on mostly dry, institutionally crafted text onto a critical argument about the further evacuation of art’s auraand a concomitant call for further engagement with the discourse surrounding art’s production and receptionbut I don’t think that’s what curators