The Village Voice, March 16, 1982

Siege

War Games: Chris Burden’s brand-new allegorical Tale of Two Cities is the best reason for this theme show. It’s an enormous miniature landscape tableau in which he’s staged a Lilliputian war with some 3000 toys. An unsettling mix of child’s play and unthinkable r eality, it’s got the allure of an elaborate Lionel set and the anxiety of Pac-Man. Another reason is the chance to see Eleanor Antin’s Angel of Mercy again, recreated for video but accompanied by some of the original cutouts and faux-Crimean War photos. There’s also Conrad Atkinson’s grisly appropriation of Hiroshima horror stories, and Komar and Melamid’s update of their controversial Hitler portrait – still too ambiguous for words.

KIM LEVIN