What Should Artists and Critics Urgently Care About?

What should artists and critics urgently care about? A Whitney Museum show of early performance-related art represents curators’ interest in art about art. It’s part of the performance art vogue, but much of the art is rather minor.

Paul McCarthy at L&M Arts, Los Angeles

“Paul McCarthy: Three Sculptures,” which inaugurates the new Los Angeles gallery of New York-based L & M Arts, has made me a reluctant fan. The grotesque sculpture is a robotic double image of George W. Bush copulating with a pig, just the sort of shock-schlock that McCarthy has made his stock in trade.