Finally saw the Seattle Art Museum’s exercise in quesitonable idolatry, Kurt.

As my ol’ acquaintance Charlotte Quinn later summarized it to me, “So depressing. And so bad.”

The icon-ization of someone who not only had a complicated relationship with the cruel master that is “fame,” but who was killed by that master. Well, by that and that even crueler master known as heroin.

The pieces in “Kurt” (aside from the actual photos of Cobain by Charles Peterson and of latter-day Cobain fans by Alice Wheeler) were big, nay humongous, paintings and sculptures and videos and installation pieces made by artists from across North America and Europe. They were made for the museum “market,” though not specifically for this exhibition.

And they by and large sucked.

When the most lively piece is a video of a mall rat (portrayed by the artist herself) dancing in an energetic yet amateur fashion to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” you know something’s amiss.

But really, what could have been done with that subject? You have a dude, a gifted yet confused dude, who has three public faces: sensitive boy poet, BS-shearing aggressive rocker, and suicide-by-the-installment-plan junkie.

Take the music and the words away, which pretty much has to be done in visual still imagery, and that’s all you have left—graven images of a very reluctant god.