THE UNGOVERNABLE
ALL-STARS

How ungovernable can artists be who have all, so to speak, attended the same global art school, studied under the same star teachers, from whom they learned to pitch their art, however obliquely, to one world market?. . . If even just a few of these artists manage to discover, as they grow and change, what ungovernable really is, and be it, future generations will owe the New Museum a debt of thanks.

Thanks, Holland, but why wait? A roster of living unbossed, unbought and unbridled artists are available to educate the so-called ungovernable minor leaguers now on show, kennel club style, at the New Museum. The list doesn't even include those like Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Marina Abramovic, who sold out long ago.

So, with spring training beginning in baseball  this week, here goes.

At first base, JULIAN SCHNABEL. Fat, paint-swilling pajama-wearing slob battles with girlfriends, critics, using a formidable bludgeon, that huge chip on his shoulder. Handling the pivot, second base, CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN. Employs her buff bod as a weapon against the art world, threw parties after her abortions, still makes politically correct museum types perspire just by entering New York.

Swifter than Jeter at shortstop, let's have a round of applause for TANIA BRUGUERA, who announced at an arts festival in Havana that anyone could speak about anything for one minute, provoking a riot among the authorities. Now, if she could just do it in Chicago. Blazing the hot corner, third base, scarifyng, anus-flapping body monster RON ATHEY. Don't think he's marketing anything globally.

In center field, I give you DAVID HAMMONS, can kicking, other artist hating, pain obsessed and angry all the time. To his right in the outfield, Mr. Blood, Guts and Gore HERMANN NITSCH shall keep the grounds crew busy cleaning up the field. And in left field, making bombs and declaring that the outfield is now his own sovereign nation, GREGORY GREEN.

Winding up on the mound, pitching politically charged portraits of golden children and noble savages in garbage covered alleys, RENE “THE BITCH NEVER LEFT” RICARD. And catching Rene's curveballs behind the plate, while throwing off the tools of ignorance. AI WEIWEI, of course.

I would appoint myself skipper, except that this Notorious Nine is not only ungovernable, it's unmanageable. But, of course, they score and score and score.

CHARLIE FINCH is co-author of Most Art Sucks: Five Years of Coagula (Smart Art Press).