The exhibit, which opened recently, has done little to tame down the collective finger wagging. Koon’s selection is, for the most part, an uninspired rundown of the usual suspects of contemporary hit-list artists. Urs Fischer, who had the run of the New Museum all to himself not too long ago, is there, as is Dan Colen (with a painting that reads “holy shit” inverted, and an egg-shaped sculpture covered in bubble gum and pennies), Tauba Auerbach (with one of her crumple-effect dot paintings), Paul Chan (with a print featuring colorful little people going at it with one another), David Altmejd (with a squirrel-and-glass-invaded giant Neanderthal) and Tino Sehgal (with one of his “staged situations”, which here involves a guard singing the ditty “This is propaganda, you know, you know”, as visitors peruse the art).
     Of the slightly older generation, there are Maurizio Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney, Chris Ofili, Kiki Smith, Vanessa Beecroft, Paul McCarthy, Charles Ray, and Koons, of course — although he only includes one of his forty-eight works bought by Joannou: “One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank” from 1985, which started Joannou’s buying spree of major contemporary art.
     In a way, it makes sense for the museum to showcase this collection. It’s a good home for it. Almost all the works fit right into its own art-rascality philosophy. For those who haven’t come upon these works before, the exhibit, which includes one hundred works by some fifty artists, provides a good opportunity to see what today’s generation of artists is up to. But for those familiar with these artists, most of whom receive heavy rotations at leading international galleries and museums, seeing them here, in this context or in this order, is unlikely to engender any new revelations on their individual currency or their wider cultural significance.