Obscene bodies

The notion of a burnt-out Conceptual artist hiring a bright young thing to invent and execute his work might, on a slow day, sound provocative to art-world outsiders, particularly those laboring in regions of the culture industry such as, say, The Charlie Rose Show. it might also be soothing to someone like Hilton Kramer to imagine such an artist driving said bright young thing to a fatal spill down an elevator shaft. But these melodramatic touches can only cause yawns in those who are drearily familiar with the art world, emanating as they obviously do from what used to be called, in the '80s, replacement envy - i.e., your success is my failure, your publicity means my obscurity, etc., etc. Envy is the urtext of Obscene Bodies, sometimes dissembled, sometimes partially copped to. By his own lights Benabib does his best to undermine this raison d'etre by revealing his narrator's mentor, and hence his narrator's superior certainties, as criminally fraudulent. Alas, as we used to say about Lyndon Johnson, his lights are none too bright and his best is none too good.

Gary Indiana is a staff writer for The Village Voice.

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