With only the beleaguered Bill Clinton to anoint, the delegates to the Democratic convention should have plenty of time on their hands. They'll be free to fret about Ross Perot or (more likely) to partake of the simpleminded spectacles concocted for them by NY '92. The nonpartisan, public-private partnership has devised a different theme for each day of convention week: Monday, July 13, is "Food and Restaurants" (alas, restaurateur/strikebreaker Joe Baum's plan to embellish Rockefeller Center with borscht fountains and ice sculptures was nixed); Tuesday brings "Fashion and Shopping" (a megafashion show in Central Park); Wednesday means "Arts and Entertainment" (a "Broadway on Broadway" musicale in Times Square); and Thursday offers "Unique New York" (a grab bag featuring TV tapings and nifty neighborhoods).

The visual arts are shoehorned into "Arts and Entertainment." The annual Museum Mile Festival has been rescheduled for convention consumption, while Downtown art has been reduced to a single, 50-person tour of Soho organized by dealer Ronald Feldman. Feldman gallery director Martina Batan told me that until the July shows can be seen the only confirmed destinations for the three-hour walk are the Soho Guggenheim and the Drawing Center, currently the site of a historical show devoted to Guercino. Batan's characterization of NY '92's view of this bohemian ramble as an otherwise agenda-free opportunity for delegates "to meet the art community" is telling.

Whatever the fate of the currently under-wraps arts plank of the Democratic platform - it will have been approved or rejected by the time you read this - NY '92 is obviously willing to pass up the chance to educate delegates about freedom of expression and the progressive social roles that art can lay. One City Hall staffer noted that "broader representation is needed"; others have been doing their damnedest to drag community groups under the NY '92 umbrella. The Manhattan beep's policy and budget analyst, Joan Hocky, for instance, has worked with Visual AIDS to help the group present its outdoor AIDS slide show, "Electric Blanket." But the bland, chamber-of-commercy NY '92 - and the characterization of its operation by dealers such as Jayne Baum as "bedlam" - makes the realization of such projects about as likely as a Jesse Jackson keynote address. Shouldn't someone ask Clinton whether he's willing to attack artists as well as rappers? And is anyone else bothered that Ross Perot's favorite artist is Norman Rockwell?

More Fun

A few suggestions for delegates: Check out the richness of New York's public art. Richard Haas's murals on the White Street Detention Center might catalyze talk about historical representation and community sensitivities. REPOhistory's "Lower Manhattan Sign Project," a 36-site series of historical markers, offers an engaging primer of local and national history. Houston Conwill's Rivers at the Schomburg Center demonstrates the possibility of public art that is ravishingly beautiful - and instructive. Or visit our newest public-art plum, Tom Otterness's The Real World in Battery Park City's Hudson River Park (formerly the site of Art on the Beach). Otterness's witty ensemble is simultaneously an allegory about economic class, a charmer that kids (and adults) can climb on, and the best contemporary work I've seen this season.