Bennett Miller: Untitled Collection

I popped into Gagosian Beverly Hills for the final day of Bennett Miller’s showing and was immediately confused.

What is this? What am I looking at? Why is everything blurry? Is that a whale? ON A STAGE?

Thank god for docents.

Each of these printed images is Ai-generated and untitled, which heightens the confusion. And yes, they’re supposed to be blurry, which baffles the brain. Yet, when I took time and space away from a piece, standing six to ten feet away from it, it became clear and I gained perspective … much like life.

Miller used the OG version of DALL-E to create each image and that left me wondering … so, what were the directions? Blurry boy jumps off rock? Whale on stage with one man in the audience but make it blurry? Hauntingly blurry little girl who looks eerily like Babe Ruth with wind tousled hair? Chair?

But, that’s the thing isn’t it? Art is lawless and whether it’s Dali or DALL-E, there are no rules — not in its creation or its suggestion. None of it has to make sense and that’s the sense of it. All it ever has to do is exist in the world and the world does the rest.

I enjoyed this exhibition. I enjoyed the way it threw me this way and that, and how destabilized it made me feel. I enjoyed the confusion before the discovery, and the distance it insisted I take to find clarity. How it reminded me that all I ever have to do is exist in the world and let the world do the rest.