I belatedly made it yesterday to the Guggenheim’s summer show “The Shapes of Space”, where it would be safe to say one of the most popular pieces is Piotr Uklanski’s Untitled (Dance Floor). It’s one of those synchronized flashing disco dance floors. The wall card was careful to relate his work to everything from Mondrian to Carl Andre. But it struck me that the floor didn’t need all the art historical referencing to qualify as art. It’s like a Roman mosaic, but with a beat.
Then again, with it’s can-you-top-this? energies, Dance Floor does work pretty well as a joke about Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie — eat your heart out Piet! — to say nothing of Andre’s dour plates-on-the-floor. Andre said it was ok for people to walk on his plate pieces? Hey, at the Guggenheim I saw two kids do cartwheels on this thing.
I’ll never look at a certain movie the same way again.
