ARTCRITICAL PICK: Marilyn Minter’s “Smash” in Brooklyn Museum’s “Killer Heels”

Who can forget the moment in Carol Reed’s Oliver! (1968) when Fagin, escaping his bolt hole lair, trips on a gangplank and spills his stolen loot, helplessly watching as it is swallowed by the sludge?  A comparable parable of glitter and murk animates Marilyn Minter’s short video, Smash, one of six commissioned by the Brooklyn Museum to accent the installation of their fall fashion blockbuster, Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe, which launched back in September and remains on view through February 15.  (The other videos are by Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Zach Gold, Steven Klein, Nick Knight, and Rashaad Newsome.)  But unlike the simple moral in Oliver, Minter’s take on vanity has a twist—or a degree of ambiguity at least.  The muck itself is glamorous, a viscous, almost gelatinous, quick silver.  The shoe smashes through continuous panes of glass whose shards are jewel-like.  And although the poor, trashed heels (thrift store bought, one learns, and embellished by the artist with costume jewelry) are eventually completely submerged in the gooey paint, the quicksand is almost forgivingly reluctant to take its charge, slipping off the fake gems like mercury.  DAVID COHEN