The sooner we fail boys, the sooner we can go home.

The accidental sinking of Mike Bouchet's floating suburban home literalizes the collapse of the American economy. What really is to be learned from this is that the Biennale remains as much of an exhibition of American megalomania as it did when American Pop Artists first arrived in Venice in 1964.

The controversial 1964 "Biennale of Pop Art" had many critics, among them De Chirco who stated "Pop-art cannot be judged because it has nothing to do with art." French critics weren't nearly as kind as they prophetically claimed it a "cultural colonization". Alan R. Solomon, the exhibition's commissioner, rushed to the defense of Pop Art stating that Pop Artists "evolve a new aesthetic not out of protest, irony or revolt, but out of an affirmative desire to search the truth of the present reality ... in response to the wonder and delight of the contemporary American environment."

This time around, the Biennale, along with the rest of the world seems to be in the same sinking boat that is the contemporary American environment.