Lisa Larson-Walker and Harold Batista on the 6th Floor, “One Liners by Two People”

This question came up for me tonight at Lisa Larson-Walker and Harold Batista's well-made and carefully staged sixth-floor show: can irony still be a means to have something to say? "Irony" in art today, or what passes as irony—I'm thinking about Carroll Dunham's cartoon "Dickhead" paintings, Richard Prince's "Spiritual America" show at the Guggenheim, or very differently, Damien Hirst, whose persona-as-production empire might be called ironic in only the most cynical terms—seems to me to be about dressing up or giving attitude to, and so in a sense legitimizing, otherwise shallow and easy work. Irony now (or rather, it's been this way) doesn't function critically so much as it preemptively scolds the viewer for taking the work seriously—who always risks taking it "too seriously"—and it looks smart by keeping the viewer from any meaning, because after all, there is no meaning anyway.

This question of irony animates the show, and in some senses, the show reanimates for me a strategy of irony. "One Liners by Two People" keeps painstakingly true to its title. The work, including but not limited to a slinky on an escalator (that needs a little nudge), a live drummer who beats out the famous one-liner anthem ("buh-dum-cha") every time you look at a poster that reads "that's what she said," a "face painting" where you can pose to have your picture taken, a Hirst-shark-in-a-tank-piñata, is in each instance a one-liner but one-liners that work—I'm entertaining the idea at least, and if we're allowed to call it work and to take it seriously—critically, and with good humor.

My first smile came peering into a pedestal that had the scrolling text, "I can't," over and over again, which stood in front of the video of the falling slinky. I think what I'm trying to say here is that on one level the show makes a light-hearted joke of "ironic" work that both wants to be taken seriously but not to be seriously considered, while at the same time manages to present an alternative, and more productive, mode of irony. At least, that's what I'm entertaining.

Another joke—Lisa Larson-Walker, who I only met briefly at the show, told me that if I had any questions that she would be here all week. I laughed and she caught the joke in what she had said before being pulled away by Harold, who she was handcuffed to.


Henry

*edit: The scrolling text in the show, which I originally misquoted as "I can't" is supposed to be "I can't."Fixed!