Auto exotica.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Artifact - Art narrative from Robert Hughes - Brief Article

GALLERIES MAY INVITE spiritual contemplation, but that often masks art's worldly meaning. This object started out as Time art critic Robert Hughes' rental car. The author of The Shock of the New and The Fatal Shore, Hughes' views of his native Australia have earned him a reputation there for pomposity. During a 1999 visit, Hughes was in a controversial crash; he's still sought for an inquiry.

Melbourne artist Danius Kesminas later bought the compacted car, festooned it with Hughes' work, titled it "Hughbris," and put it in a Perth show--Elvis Has Left the Building -- about modern myths. Kesminas had used art to attack the art critic as a "self-mythologizer."

Remarkably, Hughes has legitimized the attack. He now claims that while...