Museums: Enter Ob

First there was pop, then the trend setters opted for op, but as the new acquisitions show at Manhattan's Whitney Museum demonstrates, still another category is called for. Old-line Geometric Abstractionist Ad Reinhardt suggests "ob"—from object—and it embraces any object, image of one, or whatsit that might amuse museum directors or titillate collectors. Examples of ob art offered at the Whitney include:

>Andy Warhol's drawing titled Bow Ties, which is precisely that—the same bow tie repeated 61 times, with varying hues added.

> Yayoi Kusama's Air Mail Stickers, a collage made of 4,600 genuine airmail stickers all dutifully pasted in rows.

> Jim Dine's sketch of six toothbrushes, with squiggles of shocking pink added (for clarity's sake, the pink is labeled "toothpaste").

> Mike Todd's T-21, composed of a real, honest-to-goodness No. 1 wood right off the links, to which have been attached clusters of wooden globules. — Ernest Trova's Study, repeating his theme of falling men, with six chrome-plated look-alikes joined at their feet in a sculpture similar to the spiky piece in a child's game of jacks.

> Jason Seley's Primavera, a huge artichoke welded together from car bumpers resembling shiny chrome petals.

> John Anderson's Big Sam's Bodyguard, an abstract wooden tetrapod with knobby ends and menacing arms.

— Frank Gallo's Swimmer, a life-size female body made of polyester resin, dressed in a tank suit and given 4-ft. ail-American gams.

>Ralph Ortiz's Archaeological Find, No. 9, in which the sculptor did the excavator's work in advance; this abomination is composed of a crumpled French Provincial couch clotted with a gory semblance of mangled beef.