Even when its exhibitions are obese and incoherent, I always enjoy visiting the Brooklyn Museum. On the one hand, it’s among our most distinguished museums — it’s celebrating its 200th birthday. On the other, it’s a buzzy, bold alternative art space. But “bold” can become “dreadful,” and Solid Gold, one of its current shows, took lots of effort to be just that.
Juxtaposing film against fashion, design, Old Master painting, and lots of gold baubles, it tells us a story of gold’s odyssey across cultures and over centuries. At 500 objects, it’s immense, a long, circuitous street paved with gold, glitter, and lots of alchemy. And here’s a first — I saw Solid Gold two weeks ago, and it’s still giving me bad dreams.
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