David Godbold’s mirthless mirth

Ben Davis dissects David Godbold’s snarky exhibition in artnet today. “Contemporary art is universally irreverent, but most often none too funny. This observation is particularly striking when one considers the fact that a lot of it, particularly that inspired by Big Daddy Marcel Duchamp, owes its very being to the tropes of comedy — masquerade, mistaken identity, word play, sexual innuendo, bodily functions, and so on. Yet most often, these devices are presented with an air of chilly remove. The current show by Dublin-based David Godbold at Mitchell-Innes & Nash is not only a case in point — it takes this mirthless mirth on as an existential condition to explore. “ Read more.
David Godbold, “The Unreliable Narrator,” Apr. 14-May 25, 2007, at Mitchell-Innes & Nash on 534 W. 26th St., New York, N.Y. 10011