Whitney Biennial 2004: New York in March: More Winter Than Spring
By Charles Giuliano
During Spring Break, an odd expression, it was not Girls Behaving Badly on a beach somewhere near the Equator (which, in hindsight might have been a better idea), but rather ten days braving the rigors of a winter that just won’t quit in the city that never sleeps. Now I know why.
I approached the Whitney Museum of American Art shortly before its 11 AM opening on a Wednesday morning. My plan had been to take in the show in a leisurely manner during an off peak week time visit. Huh. Some joke.
The line snaked around the corner. Whipping out my trusty AICA card I more or less smashed into the front of the line. Apparently, this rude behavior was spotted by Boston artist, Bebe Beard, who asked me about that. “I don’t do lines,” was my response.
But those aggressive reporter tactics weren’t very successful at the ticket/ information desk. Yes, I did get comped on admission, but a catalogue was no where in sight, even though I volunteered to pay for it. It seems that even though the Biennial had just opened the publication was already sold out and new copies are not anticipated until early April which is well past this deadline. When I do get my copy it will just be of archival value.
Not that it really matters. The catalogues in the past have not been very useful. Often the works on view are not the images that are reproduced. And the curatorial essays read like graduate school dissertations. So, while annoyed, I just determined to take notes. Several daunting hours later I was more wrung out than an old mop.
Bottom line? What everyone has been asking me. So, what do you think of the Biennial? At best, mixed. My colleagues have been more positive than negative. This reflects the strategy of this show to conflate a spattering of elder statesmen, like the ever more dottering David Hockney, the perennial avant-gardenista, Yayoi Kusama, statictician, Robert Mangold, a plethora of mid career artists, and a bunch of kids for a bit of salsa. Shake and bake. Or, put another way, we Sicilians say that revenge is best served cold. And, basically, I don’t trust the mainstream critics, Michael Kimmelman, Jerry Saltz, and Peter Schjeldahl. There, I said it. Because they are New Yorkers and for them the Biennial is a show of mostly local talent. So max out the conspiracy theory of collusion, careerism, conflict of interest, and back room deals. One tends to read between the lines and look for the agenda in their positions.
Which, don’t get me wrong, does not make me any better or more honest? I am no more or less a fraud than any other critic. But I bring to the Biennial the view of an outsider. And, frankly, as in the past, I found the experience tedious and labored.
Much is being made of the reemergence of paintings and drawing. In the area of painting, with the exception of works by Cecily Brown, who I have followed for some time, I was less than impressed. Elizabeth Peyton, an apparent favorite of Schjeldahl’s, who was paired with Hockey, I knew only in reproduction. Face to face I found the work slight and disappointing. The curators appeared to be conflating the diminished skills of Hockey, now rather clumsy and lacking that earlier crisp touch, and the tentative, flailing efforts of the emerging Peyton. Which is supposed to be so cool and edgy. Maybe some day. But not now.
Which can happen post Biennial. I recall some years ago absolutely detesting the work of strident feminist Sue Williams. Referencing anorexia, a serious issue of young women, she had exhibited a carpet of vomit. It was disgusting. But with each subsequent show I found that her paintings became ever stronger and more compelling. So, indeed there may be life after a Biennial.
Oddly enough, I found myself most intrigued by the selection of video and projected work. There were stunning works by pioneers of the media, Stan Brakhage, represented here by a staccato jumpy projection of hand painted, expressionist film, and a beautifully surreal, underwater seascape by Jack Goldstein, both of whom passed away recently. Of the younger artists, I continue to be intrigued by the imagery of Slater Bradley, here with a study of a youth choir. Later in the week, at Team Gallery in Chelsea, I was riveted by his appropriation, simulacrum of the tenth anniversary of the suicide of Curt Cobain. An event that his trashed widow, Courtney Love, observed by flashing on the Letterman show and then getting busted for bonking a fan with a mike stand. Slater is channeling Cobain with subtlety, insight and elegance. He seems to me one of the most brilliant and compelling artists of his generation.
The selection of still photography is quite strong. Much ink is being spilled over the work of a regional artist, Alec Soth, and his gonzo neo Mark Twain views of trashy life along the Mississippi. They are strong and credible images. I prefer the surfers of Catherine Opie which are on view in depth currently at Jay Gorney gallery. They have a distant serene quality of the sublime in nature. Turner would love their misticism.
As to the current crop of installation artists. Well, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Before we leave for now, with more New York reports to follow over the next couple of weeks, let us pause for a few high and low points:
In the lobby, in the small gallery near the elevators, be sure to linger over Highway Junction by the sculptor, Yutake Sone. There are relief marble carvings presented face up showing a raised urban landscape. It is very skillful work that has been set in a room of potted plants and now well trampled cedar chips under foot. Similarly, the black and white skater drawings by Katie Grinnan are well executed.
The gallery of paintings by Robert Mangold, James Siena, and Kim Fisher was mostly enervating. Nearby were nervous, expressionist drawings, by Chloe Piene, channeling Egon Schiele with a foreshortened view, head on, of a vagina monologue? She was also represented in another space with a room/video of a mud spattered girl in black underwear, with an ominous growling sound track, having an anxious moment.
On to more paintings. Those by Ceclily Brown were rich and flourished views of nude supine women with a lot of basic black. Laura Owens’s were about things in trees. They didn’t much hold my attention. Raymond Pettibon, a veteran of these events, does casual drawings with words on the walls. They are about issues and stuff which is cool and all but strangely boring. This time it was something about roosters, zebras and turkeys. Perhaps he is spending time at the zoo or dating that American sweetheart and ersatz farm girl, Paris Hilton.
Last fall I loved the romance novel cover paintings of nurses by Richard Prince at Barbara Gladstone Gallery. But this time I had trouble relating to the reliefs of what appear to be drag car hoods. Everyone seems to be cheering on the comeback of conceptual painter Mel Bochner with wordy colorful pictures that say, “Mistake, error, blonde,” or, “Indifference, coldness, not give a shit, take it or leave it,” and stuff like that. They were ok.
The neo psychedelic installation of day glo junk and noise by Assume Vivid Astro Focus (the name of the artist) just sucked. Hasn’t this kid heard of Kenny Sharf? Was that Biennial really that long ago? Why do we have to reinvent the wheel? Similarly, why would I possible care about the autistic rage of dysfunctional teens screened out on several monitors, clicking on and off, by one Aida Ruilova. Or the stupid ersatz sets for some future reality show by Eric Wesley. The younger visitors to the show were crammed into the homey room of Suede Beer and her double screen of Hans and Grete. They seemed amused.
The line was just too long to get into Kusama’s mirrored room. I love her work but, as I said, I don’t do lines.
The video by Catherine Sullivan of some kind of Balkan war was executed in the slapstick manner of the Three Stooges. I didn’t get it. The dumpster with glass walls, revealing the art/ junk by Rob Fisher was just awful. Is there something here I am missing?
One of the clear differences between the kids and mid career artists is the element of maturity. That was richly evident in the absorbing video/ performance work of Marina Abramovic that rather powerfully combined several elements: A skeleton conducting a choir, two enormous heads of a boy and a girl, side by side, alternately singing in a Slavic language, and a group of people forming a huge star on the ground with the skeleton in its center. Another veteran, Roni Horn, displays a series of single images mounted on metal stands in varying groupings. The veteran, Robert Longo, is here, magnificently, with two large, black and white drawings, one of waves. That theme continues in his concurrent Metro Pictures show in Chelsea which presented a series of stunning renderings of nuclear blasts. This is the best work by Longo in the past couple of decades.
Perhaps the most phenomenal discovery of this Biennial was a group of long, horizontal, black and white, fantasy ink drawings by Ernesto Caivano. These quiet, mystical, fantasy drawings in the manner of the art nouveau style of Aubrey Beardsley are largely drowned out in the cacophony and circus of the Biennial. Later in the week, we saw a more serene installation of the work in a large gallery in PS I in Queens. The works are delicate and exquisitely crafted. By far, he is the master of a large genre of artists working with notions of fairy tales and fantasy. Call them the Lord of the Rings generation.
There was a wall label for the work of Maurizio Cattelan but I couldn’t find the piece. I searched diligently. Even asked a guard for assistance. All to no avail. A review informed me that the work had been destroyed at the request of the artist, donated to the collection, and now permanently buried in the floor. Near the label one would assume. What a strategy. Out of sight but not out of mind. Oh where or where can that art be? Come back little Sheba. I wish more artists had adapted that strategy.
I loved the room of large photos of men by Jack Pierson all with the titles of self portrait. Clearly they did not resemble each other or recall the artist whom I have met in the past. His work is always so wonderful and dumb in such a naïve smart way. The men are so gay. And strangely benign and innocent. How does he do that? I am always fascinated by his work with its deadpan, snapshot mentality. It’s just that his snap shots are always so good. Like deadpan Andy Warhol paintings. Is that a gay thing? Or am I just too straight to get it?
There is so much I don’t understand. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
