Art: Wild Pets, Tame Pastiche

A mix of young Italians at the Guggenheim

This is Italian family month in New York museums. First, the Museum of Modern Art's great retrospective of Giorgio de Chirico to fix the paternity, or some of it, and now the offspring, or some of them, at the Guggenheim Museum. "Italian Art Now: An American Perspective" is the latest in the Guggenheim's discursive series of "sample shows" of the current art of different nations. It covers the work of seven artists: three painters (Sandro Chia, Enzo Cucchi, Nino Longobardi), two sculptors (Giuseppe Penone and Gilberto...