Circus Americanus

With passing nods to J.G. Ballard, Reyner Banham and Jean Baudrillard, the leitmotif of this collection of short essays is the Disneyfication of America, by which all experience is subject to the hyper-realities and inflated expectations of entertainment. A contemporary art critic, Rugoff arrived on the West Coast, where he ``felt instantly, if somewhat oddly, at home,'' in 1983. Writing for LA Weekly--which first printed most of these essays--he developed a style of cultural journalism that uses art as a springboard to other topics. For example, minimalist sculptor Robert Irwin's career as a gambler ushers in a piece on a Hollywood racetrack. The ensuing ``circus'' takes in such sideshow attractions as the Liberace Museum and the Foundation for Facial Plastic Surgery to encompass the seamier realms of pulp non-fiction. An essay on forensic animators, whose work prompts jurors to witness a crime from the bullet's point of view, begins with an invitation to Quentin Tarantino to make way for the true maestros of ``chillingly violent images.'' Rugoff's illustrated essays are appropriately entertaining--a description of ``gifts from the people'' displayed at the Richard Nixon Library is especially funny. One of the strongest essays, though, is a relatively quiet homage to the conceptual artist Robyn Whitlaw, whose In-visibility Project (1973-1978) preceded her own enigmatic disappearance. (Dec.)