Herr Fischer's Haunted House

Urs Fischer has turned the New Museum into the art world's answer to the Addams Family house—dank in affect, dim in concept, and deliciously creepy. Naturally, I showed up for the opening party. Wandering from floor to floor, brushing aside the cobwebs, I met so many ghosts that I began to doubt that I would ever meet the man of the hour. At this Fischer show Herr Fischer was nowhere to be seen. I saw Lynda Benglis, in strange, protoplasmic form. I saw Barry Le Va and Robert Rauschenberg and George Segal. Salvador Dali, maestro of the melted watches, was in attendance, haunting a melted piano. There was a funhouse mirror reflecting Richard Artschwager's familiar wood grain and any number of unexorcized bits and pieces of Andy Warhol. Of all the works in this overstuffed show, my favorite was Cumpadre, a croissant suspended from a length of fishing line. Guess what perches on the croissant. A butterfly. What else? Fischer's butterfly is a distant relative of the parrot in Joan Miro's Object, the benchmark example of Surrealist assemblage. Cumpadre wants us to believe it has met Miro's standard. Do not be fooled. Step back and watch, as Fischer's object sinks to the level of public sculpture, something along the lines of Homage to the Generic Surrealist.