OK, we get it—a lot of people are not impressed with MoMA’s attempt to package the one-person cultural maelstrom we know as Björk. Critics have used the occasion of a less-than-successful exhibit to launch an art world roast of the MoMA, and writers have been competing to outdo each other with their best zingers. Art critic Jerry Saltz was so annoyed that he had to write about this show twice already, and accuses MoMA of engaging in a “self-suicidal slide into a box-office-driven carnival…” Ben Davis was freaked out by the creepy mannequins and accuses MoMA of transforming itself into a “hipster, lifestyle brand.” M.H. Miller couldn’t figure out the volume control on his audio guide device and accuses MoMA of “starfucking.”
Apparently, Thessaly La Force is the only person on earth who was in college during the 90s, and once skipped class to get high and listen to the Sugarcubes. She is the only person who, as an adolescent, had feelings, and felt “out of place,” and could easily identify with song lyrics. La Force is the only person to feel even the slightest twinge of tenderness and nostalgia for the soundtrack of her youth, and the gloriously eccentric Icelandic weirdo who plunged the depths of her soul and transfigured an entire generation of musicians, filmmakers, artists, and designers, and she is willing to cut the MoMA a little slack for taking on the challenge of distilling the spirit of a multimedia cultural icon into a multi-room retrospective exhibit—even if they did choose to rely on creepy mannequins to do it.
