Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Cady Noland
American; 20th-century, 21st-century
Antwerp, Belgium: Museum of Contemporary Art — M HKA
67%
Oozewald. 1989. Aluminum, nylon, silver cloth
JFK iconography sees diminishing returns on its edginess and conceptual lucidity as we move further out of the 20th century. (Lutz Bacher's work suffers from this, too.) And Noland's art in general loses a lot through its "museumification" — this piece seems to have much less "form" as a standalone sculpture than it would have had as part of an installation or a series. (This is a problem with conceptualism in general which curators, as much as artists, should have to bear.) That said, there's much more to this work than there appears to be at first. It strikes you as lightly aestheticized nostalgia, but then you notice that the narrow metallic border around Oswald's silhouette is irregular, protruding a little at his shoulder and at the left side of his head. Why? The artwork seems conspiracist or thinly political, too, until you try to come up with an explanation for the precise size and placement of the circles all over the metal sheet, or for Noland's decision to display that sheet like a folding "We're Open" sign. The stupid title contributes to these ambiguating mechanics. It is equal parts direct (the folded flag oozes out of Oswald's wound like political violence seeping from the nation's unhealed traumas) and circuitous (like, what the fuck does that even mean?). (TFS, 2026)