Raunchy, Raucous Coney Island
J. Hoberman writes: ‘“The only thing about America that interests me is Coney Island,†Sigmund Freud is supposed to have said—and the itinerary of Freud’s 1909 trip to America did include a visit to Dreamland, then the newest of Coney Island’s original three amusement parks. Perhaps for Freud, Coney Island was America—a realm where fantasy was made material and the pleasure principle ruled. So it is with the bountiful exhibition “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008,†at the Brooklyn Museum through March 13.’
