The Easel

New Museum Triennial

The New Museum Triennial disappoints different critics in different ways. One grumbles that it “keeps its voice low”. Another says the show is “a glass one-quarter full”. A source of this irritation is its belaboured politics. It is “easy listening art … letting us bask in feel-good consensus.” Overall, there are too few works that “are satisfied to be artworks, not instigations.”