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The New York Times calls ICP’s new retrospective of the artwork of Barbara Bloom a “disappointing survey” - their beef with the exhibit is that the installation doesn’t do Bloom’s work justice. The meticulousness of her displays and the complete Bloom universe she’s created in past installations - The Reign of Narcissism in 1989 at MOCA, for example - aren’t really re-created at ICP. Instead, works are isolated from their original context (a box of chocolates embossed with Bloom’s profile, originally a part of The Reign of Narcissism is displayed here in a museum case along with other Narcissism artifacts). This show is about Bloom’s collections and the artist as collector. For instance, one of her collections is a complete set of Vladimir Nabokov’s books with re-designed covers by Bloom. (According to the museum catalogue, Nabokov also obsessively collected editions of his own books).

As a Bloom fan, obviously I would have liked to see some of her installations fully realized, as the Times suggests, but then again, her work is so infrequently shown that I’ll take this show over nothing, and I’m not sure that was the real point of this exhibit. If anything, the New York Times might want to ask why the Guggenheim will put up the arena rock show of exhibitions, Matthew Barney’s Cremaster but they haven’t yet mounted a Barbara Bloom retrospective. Maybe it’s because her work is more quiet, less aggressive, less monster truckish than Barney’s. But the level of execution - the production value - is very much in the same vein. They both have the same obsessive tendencies. But, well, if Barney is a rock star, then Bloom is the nerdy shoegazer. Barney oozes vaseline, rubs his masculinity all over us, while Bloom’s institutional critique of precisely the kind of overblown, ego-driven museum retrospective of which Cremaster exemplifies, is neatly packaged in a carefully detailed neo-classical drawing room. It’s a lot less sexy, maybe, but then again there is a certain sexiness to a precisely focused gaze on a single object rather than the cold sterility of a virtual reality that overwhelms the eye to the point that no detail is finely examined. Point being: See this show, and relish the small things, like you would in a library or archive. Then buy the catalogue and do it all over again, but this time from your bedroom. The Collections of Barbara Bloom will be on view at the International Center of Photography in New York through May 4, 2008.

[Pictured is the installation of Bloom's The Reign of Narcissism at MOCA in 1989.]