Pop Life: Art in a Material World

I never thought I'd see anything of mine at Tate Modern, but lo, the very first exhibit here is a set of tiny plastic figurines by Japanese artrepreneur Takashi Murakami and I got one free once with some bubblegum. The full-scale sculpture sat beside - of a pneumatic, lactating manga chick - is somewhat more expensive to acquire, however, with her brother having sold for $15 million last year. Welcome to 'Pop Life: Art in a Material World', where low culture meets high art and even higher price tags (it was going to be called 'Sold Out' but artist power leaves Tate as the only sell-out).

It's all the be-wigged weirdo's fault, of course, so we have a room called 'The Worst of Warhol', showing Andy's late portraits-for-money period and crass advertising cameos. Never has an exhibition looked so lowly upon its star-turns. One of Warhol's protégés (all these artists are followers in some way), the '80s street artist Keith Haring, is unfairly reduced to a money-grabbing retailer through a recreation of his art-for-all 'Pop Shop', neglecting his campaigning activism against drugs and the Aids that killed him in 1990.

Martin Kippenberger can't answer back either, although he's treated more reverentially for his voracious, anything-goes output. Koons comes in for some serious stick in the 'Made in Heaven' room of cringe-worthy sex acts celebrating his brief nuptials to pornstar La Cicciolina, and even the small YBA room is scathingly titled 'Almost Infamous'. Damien Hirst's knowingly OTT Barnum & Bailey auction of last year is here represented by the gold-flecked 'False Idol' and 'The Kiss of Midas' as the apotheosis of hoodwinking, take-all brinkmanship.

The implicit criticism underlying this display of baubles is that facile shock tactics maketh notoriety, which begets more money, or simply: fuck art, let's get rich and famous. But the message is muddled by a fundamental split in attitudes between those who set out to annoy, offend and goad (especially Richard Prince's tasteless reframing of the Lolita syndrome -which was removed after the opening) and those art manufacturers simply in it to win it (Warhol, Murakami, Hirst).

Discount the nasty stuff, of which Rob Pruitt's shallow attempt to rip up the race card is the most heinous example, and you'll find an entertaining and timely show that both provokes and pokes a hole in an already deflated bubble. Yet, just what is it that makes me feel so empty, so cheated? Unfortunately, that's where we're at - there's no beauty, transcendence or emotion, simply a lack thereof. In its place: a stance, a posture. It's all a put-on, about getting over, showing off. The contemporary art world's going to hell in a handcart, being driven by a cute Kanye West bear and pulled by Maurizio Cattelan's dead horse. But what a way to go.