Faded Aguirre

I went up to the Moma today to see a screening of Aguirre The Wrath Of God, directed by Werner Herzog. Released in 1973 the film is in great need of a major restoration as it is fading to a red brown mess.The curator mentions that the print is fading in his projected notes but he thought the red brown "golden" tones added to the rich texture of the film. I didn't and I kept imagining the film in what must have been its rich color palette. If I had known how faded the print was, I think I would have passed on it, the greens, reds and blues are pretty much gone which is a shame. Hopefully someone will restore it. Anyway while I waited for the film I took in the Moma's recent acquisition fiasco which they call "Sites Of Reason" which is as dull and pathetic group of work I have seen since their last acquisition show, maybe they can get the money back that they wasted buying these "works of art." Keep up the good work Moma. There is also one of their hastily thrown together photography shows that should keep the tourists quiet and dulled. This one is called "A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices In The Studio" and of course the title is misleading and meaningless with very little of work actually fitting the title of the show, but it does free up the Moma to throw whatever was handy into this smorgasbord of photographic images. This museum must think that we're all idiots not to realize how slap dash this show is. To be sure there are some mighty fine photographs in this exhibit, how could it be otherwise with what they own but there are also way too many mediocre works by the the usual suspects who I won't mention by name. And finally I leisurely walked through the wonderful Sigmar Polke retrospective again, and I liked it even more this time than I did on my first viewing. This is the show to see, even though the installation is ugly (the works in that God awful atrium are especially ill served) and there are no labels only a cumbersome and confusing checklist. The Polke is only on through Aug. 3, the other two shows will be on for far too long.