Whitney Biennial 2008
Visualizing the Uncertainty Principle
By: Charles Giuliano - Apr 13, 2008
Whitney Biennial 2008
Curated by Henriette Huldisch and Shamim M. Momin. Advisers: Thelma Golden, Bill Horrigan and Linda Norden. Catalogue: 270 pages, with a forward by Adam Weinberg, essays by Huldisch, Momin, and Rebecca Solnit. At the Whitney Museum of American Art 945 Madison Avenue at 75th street, through June 1, and at the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street through March 23.
In a video by Javier Tellez, on view in the Whitney Museum Biennial 2008, there is a dramatization of a traditional metaphor. One by one, six blind New Yorkers are led up to an elephant and allowed to touch and encounter it. According to the parable each has a different impression and definition of the enormous animal depending upon which part of it they have examined.
This is an apt point of departure for the attempt which follows to come to grips with a similarly disparate experience even though I undertook it with fully operational and complete senses. How then to relate to it? Which of the rather different parts and aspects congeal as a whole? Just what is this elephantine beast all about and how best to digest and discuss the project?
One starts with due diligence. This entailed visiting the museum on two occasions. The first encounter consumed the better part of a day. This time was set aside during a week of devouring art including the glut of art fairs. Of course, that results in making it particularly difficult to extract specific ideas of the Biennial from the overkill of visual input and critical thinking. Dutifully, I returned later over the weekend, on a Sunday to be precise, to set aside a portion of an amble along Museum Mile that started at the Guggenheim, proceeded to the Met, and then terminated at the Whitney.
Even allotting this double exposure to the Biennial by now, a couple of weeks later, much of what was initially fresh and vibrant is already slipping ever further away. Of course this is a natural process of engulfing enormous quantities of art which is the norm for visits to Manhattan, tours of Europe or other arts adventures. This is a welcome process as time and distance allow for filtering and considering just what proved to be of lingering or even lasting value.
But there is another part of this process which entails research. There is the necessity of reading the catalogue with its potential to either clarify the work or further obfuscate our understanding. One relies strongly on the illustrations to jog faulty memory. But catalogues are produced long in advance of exhibitions, and as many of the works were made specifically for this occasion, what is illustrated in the catalogue often hardly resembles what we have actually seen. Unless one takes careful notes it is not always possible to connect a name or images in a catalogue with the direct encounter of the work. In this case, between those separate visits within the span of a week, I tried to study the images the better to match up and clarify what I was looking at on second sight.
Of course it would have been ideal to read the catalogue while doing field research but during a busy week on the go this just wasn't possible. So you do the reading later which is like a third visit to an exhibition. Art historians are generally advised to do their reading and research before they travel. This is how I worked with a student writing a paper on the Laurentian Library while she would be residing in Florence. I enjoyed rereading with her the Ackerman study of the architecture of Michlangelo. When she returned we met again to discuss what she had observed. This would be the ideal means of dealing with biennials.
There are those first impressions. Ahah. This exhibition is like the Trunk of the elephant. Of that I am absolutely certain. That was how I felt while rambling around the Venice Biennale last fall. Only to return home, read the catalogue, digest all the data and conclude, that, No, it was like the Ear of the elephant; flat, rough, and flappy.
It is interesting now to compare those experiences. The Biennale of Robert Storr which seemed so predictable and mainstream. As was argued cogently in rebuttals to his harsh reviews by Storr, and the counter responses by those whom he attacked in issues of Art Forum. It was lively reading which proved to be more interesting than the actual Biennale. But there was a clarity to his installations and the manner in which he discussed them. One test of how much he was attacked was the degree to which other critics and curators found his project and text accessible. On the other hand, this latest Whitney Biennial is initially more satisfying than Venice, because it approximates our anticipations for the new. Storr writes with clarity and passion, with troubling glimpses of his persona as an artist, friend, benefactor, king maker and street fighter. The essays by the curators of the Whitney Biennial, by contrast, are so dense and oblique that hardly anyone is enticed to take them on. The essay by Shamim M. Momin is so demanding that very few will absorb it well enough to debate its arguments.
Since the Whitney Biennial is mounted by a museum that invites the public, and keeps a sharp eye on attendance, one wonders just whom Momin is writing for? What is the presumed audience for her exhibition, essay and critical position? And,for the handful of peers who have similar background and education, including the selected artists, surely this is the mother's milk of contemporary thinking about visual culture. But, sorry guys, a Whitney Biennial is an exhibition which every two years is intended to provide timely takes on what has proved to be significant. It is not intended to serve as a graduate seminar for a group of super smart, widely read scholars to show off their chops. The focus should be on the work. Too often the curators assemble shows that function as their personal art form. In that sense Storr is unique in having actually spent time in the studio while too many curators are wannabe artists.
Examined from this top down perspective the Whitney Biennial, here we go with another elephant analogy, pick your own favorite part, perhaps the hoof, serves not as an overview of what is fresh but as pawns in the chess game of curators intent on putting theory into practice. We are looking at the work of this or that individual artist not because it is interesting, or important, but rather because it illustrates the theory of the curator.
There has been an ongoing debate about the education of artists and how, in the future, the MFA degree which, until now, gets you a tenure track position in the academy, will yield to the demand for a Doctorate of Studio Art. This will earn more money for the schools which process artists aspiring to teaching positions. An obvious result of this will be artists making smarter art. It raises the bar elevating artists from workers who make things to intellectuals. Who will be then be included in exhibitions by smarter curators who have been bumped up from MA's to PhD's as entry level qualifications. The era is gone when David Ross, Kathy Halbreich, and Philippe de Montebello grew into positions as directors of major museums with nothing beyond undergraduate degrees.
The current Whitney Biennial represents the collateral damage of raising the intellectual bar for museum curators and the artists who are churned out by too many graduate programs. Another way of looking at the elephant is as a behemoth signifying the ever more arid and erudite drift of the art world. To push the argument to its entropy (a topic of discussion by Momin as she derived it from the study of the writing of Robert Smithson) possibly a PhD will be required of visitors to future Whitney Biennials.
It has been noted that this is the most orderly and least cluttered Biennial is recent memory. The same point was made about the Storr installations in Venice. A number of writers on these shows have noted this with negative comments and even some nostalgia for the chaotic onslaughts of earlier versions. One recalls being bombarded by past Whitney Biennials. They also seemed to have a point of view and didactic positions which one could react to and feed on. There was that element of taste and passion often associated with an individual or team of curators. It added to the fun, energy, and excitement.
While there is indeed a welcome clarity and breathing room this time the Whitney also seems pervasively cool and overly calculated. There isn't much to sink your teeth into. Often, when young curators are in charge, they go all out to present the work of their generation. But that is not the case this time. It is remarkable to note that the age of the artists is spread out evenly with John Baldessari, born 1931, as the elder statesman. Oddly enough, his work doesn't particularly look "old." It is rather fresh and feisty actually. The ageism label might more aptly be pinned to the back of two of the handful of "painters" in this show, the realist Robert Bechtle, born 1932, or the "consummate artist's artist" as she is described in the catalogue, Mary Heilmann, born 1940. More engaging were the paintings of another senior, Oliver Mosset (born 1944).
There are a surprising number of artists who have been recycled from moments of past prominence. There is samosamo art by Matt Mullican (born 1951), Stephen Prina (born 1954), Sherrie Levine (born 1947), James Welling (born 1951), and Michael Smith (1951).
Of the younger artists there are relatively few surprises or risks in the rest of the selections. Many of the younger artists are well established in an art world where 20 is the new 30. One may make a cogent argument for virtually all of the artists in the Biennial. This was enforced as I tagged along for the gallery talk of a very bright, twenty something docent. She had something positive and apt to say about every artist. Clearly, she had been groomed by the curators for this public interface. But such tours, while helpful, always put a positive spin on the work which comes out homogenized and lacking in the edge and issues which are precisely what we seek when encountering new and challenging work.
Visiting the cubicles for Matt Mullican and Stephen Prina, for example, I found myself feeling "Haven't I been here before?" Their work wasn't all that interesting the first time so why am I being subjected to this again? The good news of the progress and process of "Modernism" was that eventually mediocre art just faded away. But now that "Modernism" has been discredited, truth is, nothing gets discarded. It all shows up and gets recycled by graduate students, critics and curators. Take Mary Heilmann, for example. Am I really going out on a limb saying that her work is not that compelling? Sloppy comes to mind which is precisely why it's considered noteworthy. In that sense, wan't Pollock sloppy? And, as much as I like representational painting, for all the wrong reasons, Bechtle is, well, pretty dry.
One of the motives for scheduling a return visit was to give more time and attention to the videos. A big chunk of that both times was spent viewing the four hour long Spike Lee documentary "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts." At some point I will put it on my Netflix list and see it through. It should be seen by every American particularly anyone contemplating putting another Republican administration into the White House. While it is a truly remarkable work of art, in every sense, it is difficult to fathom its context in the Whitney Biennial. Similarly, Astrid, who was born in Germany, and I were particularly moved by the film on the former DDR by Amie Siegel. It was a very compelling look at the horrors of the Stasi and life under Communism.
While the videos of Lee and Siegel were presented in small theatres many of the other videos were viewed in often crowded cubicles. In a certain sense these proved to be endurance tests of just how long one needed to spend to get the point of the work or to find enough justification for prolonged exposure. The video of a deranged Viking woman, by Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, seemingly lost and homeless in an urban environment, was infuriatingly bad and pointless. Until, of course, you read the critical essay which reveals its esoteric point. Ditto for the dumb and dumber accidental tourist video by Olaf Breuning. Which was oh so stupid. Again, the critical essay explains how actually it is quite smart. Duh on me. A slapped together barn yard construction by Mika Rottenberg conveyed video glimpses of several women with the fetish of remarkably long hair. It was so outrageously over the top that it succeeded in a total gonzo kind of way. The monologue by the Syrian performer, Rami Farah, covering such topics as peace, vengeance, hate and retribution, by Julia Metzer and David Thorne, was more vexing and irritating that insightful. Yeah, Rami, I feel your pain. So, what else is new?
Much of the sculptures were, well, solid. There is something about how it uses material and commands space that, by definition, gives it mass and density in every sense. There was a tendency toward construction if not constructivism. Like William Cordova's "House that Frank Lloyd Wright Built 4 Fred Hampton and Mark Clark." As well as numerous works created with arte povere inspired materials. The work of Ry Rocklen was particularly notable and inventive.
What did I like? The monochrome large paintings by Oliver Mosset were simple, powerful, and visually stunning. What did I really hate? That's easy; the bad painting queen of the moment, Karen Kilimnik. In addition to the four, small, inept, representational paintings in her cubicle there was also a chandelier. Apparently, it was all about the chandelier.
Some final thoughts on the curators and their intentionality. The essay by curator Henriette Huldisch is titled "Lessness: Samuel Beckett in Echo Park, or, an Art of Smaller, Slower and Less." Ok. Lessness. Let me think about that and get back to you. Beckett, sure, we all like Beckett. Why not? But Momin's essay, after establishing quotes by Vito Acconci and Matt Mullican, starts with a discussion of Einstein and Black Holes. By the fifth paragraph, she is regretting that other fields discarded Newtonian physics ages ago while those of us in visual culture have been ever so slow to catch up with the warp speed of the space time continuum. By the next paragraph, she is warning us against "Â…a slight misreading of Werner Karl Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the observer effect, which introduced the concept of 'temporal paradox'-was an important influence on the fundamental shifts in art that began at the momentÂ…" There are more stepping stones to negotiate while crossing the pond of her critical thinking.
By comparison, the essay by Rebecca Solnit "Sometimes Made Possible: Radical Diffidence, or the Shy Downturned Face of Revolution in Our Time" was remarkable for its clarity and fresh insights. She makes wonderful points about the lost idealism of the revolutionary 1960s, when we tried to change the world, and the smaller, more plausible goals of youth today. Instead of protesting against Walmart and Monsanto, that boomer thing, she discusses the "smaller" strategy of Biennial artist Fritz Haeg to transform useless front lawns, particularly in arid California, into mini vegetable gardens. That's like putting wheels on luggage. She positions herself as on the cusp between the generations of the kids and boomers. It's a great read.
Solnit is relating to how Huldisch is defining Lessness as "...a direction in which artists are working (in diverse modes) that points to constriction, sustainablity, nonmonumentality, antispectacle and ephemerality. In addition there is an evident tendency toward communal projects and systems of exchange that, while bridging geographically diverse artistic communities, are also deeply invested in local specificity."
Huldisch also states that "...First, there is the strong tendency of contemporary work in which artists, in addition to making objects for the gallery or museum, also maintain a set of practices that are collective, embodied, often ephemeral and time based, and which to a certain extent seek to elude the market even while acknowledging an implication in its mechanisms. Second, the concept of 'failure' emerges as a key motif in a range of works. Some of these engage with the disappearance of the grand narrative, be it modernism, the political ideologies of communism and socialism as realized in the former Eastern bloc, or utopian models which grew out of the 1960s counterculture; others, reacting on a more personal level, address failure as a condition profoundly out of key with the principal credos of American culture. Last, there is the penchant for using modest, scavanged or found materials- often in sculptural works and frequently articulated in formal terms- that exists in opposition to the sheer abundance of stuff in this rampant consumer culture, a mode of working that invokes the waste inherent in the system and references, however subtly, postindustrial landscapes of decay and ecological damage."
Yes there are wonderful and enduring works in the Whitney Biennial 2008. I am just not sure that I know what they are. It will take a decade or more to sort out what is important and enduring. In a couple of years we will go through this again.