America, real and imagined: the Whitney Museum of American Art reaches outside its normal purview to see how the U.S. is viewed abroad - The American Effect: Global Perspectives on the United States, 1990-2003

The golden age of globalism, ushered in by the post-Cold War trashing of borders and barriers, already seems a distant memory. Celebrations of cultural hybridity, decentered networks of influence and nomadism have given way to talk of empire, unilateral action, national identity and the self-interested exercise of political, economic and military power. In the 1990s, the American and European art worlds discovered the Other. Now, as this nation pulls back into a self-protective cocoon, the Other has let us know that he/she/it has also been looking at us.

Organized by Lawrence Rinder, the Whitney Museum's curator of contemporary art, "The American Effect" is a remarkably timely effort to examine the way that America is viewed from abroad. An exhibition of 49 international artists presenting various perspectives on the United States, it is an unusual show for an institution normally devoted to the exploration of American art. One suspects that the show reflects Rinder's desire to expand a mandate that has come to seem increasingly confining and even provincial. At the same time, the show also represents a brave effort to address contradictions in the American image at home and abroad that no longer seem capable of reconciliation.

In much of the U.S., the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center were met with the baffled cry: "Why do they hate us?" America's self-image of benign protector has been further battered over the last two years as we have watched much of the international sympathy extended to the U.S. in the wake of the attacks turn to anger. This show, actually conceived before Sept. 11 and set into motion soon after, was essentially completed before the commencement of the Iraq War. Thus the work in it predates the most vehement reactions to unleashed American power. In retrospect, that may be for the best, as the show is intended to cover the entire post-Cold War period. Rather than offering a journalistic report on attitudes today, the art works reflect the genesis and growth of tensions that have more recently exploded into rage and violence.

While not as clearly focused as it might have been (questions of realpolitik and the growing divergence between American values and U.S. government policies are better served in the catalogue than in the exhibition itself) the show raised some vital questions. Given its potentially inflammatory subject matter and the fragile state of political protest generally in post-9/11 America, the exhibition was surprisingly well received. In the current climate, American citizens like the Dixie Chicks who question current policies run the risk of being labeled traitors. Do foreigners have greater leeway to be critical?

"The American Effect" is most successful when it follows a strategy pioneered by the Whitney's "Black Male" show, curated by Thelma Golden. In that 1995 exhibition, the subject was not the real status of black males in American society but rather the way they are represented in the media and popular imagination. In the current exhibition, the most convincing work touches on the myth of America as it is perceived from abroad. Works dealing with America as the outsized land of utopian dreams, cinematic power struggles and avaricious decadence suggest the psychological hold this nation exercises over both friends and enemies. Less effective here are the more overtly political works that deal straightforwardly with the in effects of American power internationally and the enumeration of the country's gins.

Among the most powerful American myths is that of the Wild West. Highly ambiguous, it simultaneously signifies the heroic ideal of rugged individualism, the original sin of genocide, the romantic escape from civilization and the imposition of rough frontier justice. The myth of the American West was carried abroad by the genre of the Hollywood western, among others. Today it is probably most clearly embodied in the non-American mind by the figure of George W. Bush, who cultivates his persona as the cowboy president with such rhetorical flourishes as "dead or alive" and "we're gonna smoke 'em out."

On the evidence here, non-American artists are more likely to identify with the Indians than with the cowboys. Australian aborigine Fiona Foley has photographed herself in the native garb and company of American Seminoles. Andrea Robbins and Max Becher (she is American, he is German) document members of East German clubs dedicated to the emulation of Native Americans. In their photographs, blond, blue-eyed northern Europeans proudly pose in authentic-looking beaded leather vests and feather headdresses. Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow has contributed an overlife-size reenactment of the defeat of Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. His mud-and-burlap figures are full of life even as they struggle to the death. Muscles, facial features and even details of rough frontier clothing are convincingly modeled, giving each figure a distinctive individuality. Custer falls backward on his arm as he raises a gun in vain defiance. One of his Indian adversaries clings to a fallen horse as he continues to shoot. Frozen in their death throes, both sides seem to be going down in defeat. Thus the scenario suggests the heroic futility of the defense of a way of life that will soon be lost to both antagonists.