Consider Richard Kern's photograph of ''Lucy in the Bathroom," a bare-breasted image of Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie. A portrait of a nude or partly nude woman made by a male artist often has an undercurrent of exploitation or voyeurism. This one doesn't. For one thing, McKenzie is standing, not lying on a bed. She looks confident and comfortable -- and utterly unseductive.
And consider the lineup of artists in David Robbins's 1986 series of photographs called ''Talent." Warhol's commodification of humanity is a source for these headshots of Jeff Koons, Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, and other art luminaries of the day, squeaky clean and wholesome-looking, as if they were auditioning for a play or were being photographed as up-and-coming executives for a corporate annual report.
There's no work by Warhol in the show, but his presence is clearly felt in works including Deborah Kass's ''Cindy Sherman," a double portrait of Sherman, whose specialty is dressing up as other people, both famous and fictional. Here she is made up to look like Liza Minnelli. Kass's layered work alludes equally to Warhol and Sherman and is a fine example of the art about art about art that also crops up in Matthew Antezzo's painting ''Nach-bild (After Image)," based on a 1959 Hollis Frampton photograph of Frank Stella working on one of his ''black" paintings.
Your reaction to the show will depend in part on which of these artists are familiar to you. Only a few dogged followers of contemporary art will recognize them all. The ICA helps out a bit with label text and an occasional tiny reproduction of the artist/sitter's work. It's not enough to engage someone who is not already engaged.
