Photograph by Tom Powel Imaging
From "A Journey That Wasn't," a 2005 film by Pierre Huyghe.
Posted on 03/03/2006 5:46:12 AM PST by Pharmboy
THERE are plenty of people rooting for this latest Whitney Biennial, hoping it recalibrates the image of the art world as something other than youth-besotted and money-obsessed. It's a start, just barely. I imagine it will provoke much head scratching by uninitiated visitors. This typically huge exhibition is very much an insider's affair, a hermetic take on what has been making waves. It will seem old hat to aficionados and inscrutable to many others.
Maybe it's impossible, or impossible for the Whitney, to do a show today that doesn't seem beholden to fashion and, for art world types, familiar. Francesco Vezzoli's movie-star-studded version of a trailer for Gore Vidal's "Caligula" was a one-note gag when it was screened at the Venice Biennale; it's a tired joke the second time around.
A biennial can have many purposes. This one is partly about preaching to the converted.
Photograph by Tom Powel Imaging
From "A Journey That Wasn't," a 2005 film by Pierre Huyghe.
Librado Romero/The New York Times
"DTAOT: Combine (Don't Trust Anyone Over 30, All Over Again)," an abstract video installation by Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Laurent P. Berger and Tony Oursler, working with the band Japanther.
Courtesy Rivington Arms, New York
Hanna Liden's "Lake With Fire" (2003)
Librado Romero/The New York Times
A 2006 installation by Anthony Burdin.
Librado Romero/The New York Times
Urs Fischer's "Intelligence of Flowers" (holes in the wall) and "Untitled" (hanging shapes).
Librado Romero/The New York Times
Lisa Lapinski's "Nightstand" (2005)
Librado Romero/The New York Times
Works at the biennial by Matthew Monahan include "Twilight of the Idiots," "The Heckler" and "The Troubadour."
Librado Romero/The New York Times
"Peace Tower" (2006) by Mark di Suvero and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Librado Romero/The New York Times
Paul Chan's "1st Light" (2005)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"Art" ping...whatchoo guys think??
Oops...meant woofie.
Art ping.
Let Sam Cree, Woofie or me know if you want on or off this art ping list.
Thanks for the post and for all the pics! I rarely make it to see this show, and we are not that far from NYC.
Well, I like Liden's Lake with Fire. There's a spiritual mystery there that has me thinking, and I like that. But otherwise, it all has a "been there, done that" quality. What's really new? New form, new content? I don't see it. And I'm disappointed with de Suvero's work.
The more I see this stuff, the more it does seem like the "academic" art of the end of the century. I'm going to post an article by Donald Kuspit from Art New England about the resurgence of realism. But I'm not sure that detailed realism is the answer either. But Kuspit does note a shift away from the common negativity of NYC art, and that's point worth considering.
About ten or so years ago the stuff was so political that it could not be experienced without nausea. The curators have now changed, and much of the politics has left. I would be interested to read the article you mention by Kuspit.
Dada-ism destroyed the art world. Now, all we have is pointless garbage, minus Dada-ism's punk sensibilities, sacrasm, and freshness. BORING! ...And certainly NOT demonstrative of talent, skill, or aspiration.
The emporer has no clothes.
...oddly the photography OF the art is the most noteworthy art.
I have always "bought" the irrational take on Dada and Surrealism. And it was a new concept: using chance. I think Pollock's use of chance can be said to have created a great deal of depth (visual and psychological) in his work, but I'm skeptical of the shallow use of the irrational. It's cool, fun and new, and thus it's great art. Duchamp is a great example of the "shallow of the new."
And it has continued, amazingly, through Rauchenberg and into the current Whitney show. And that's what we get: art of holes in the wall. Are we allowed to walk through those walls, or should we just visit a site that is being torn down to get that effect?
See, I like Pollack, not because he is irrational, but because he is chaotic. I do not equate the two, even though perhaps one may use the technique of suspending the rational to arrive at the chaotic; there has been much decent art, in my opinion, done by people, observing the forms of chaotic with the mind of a scientist but the soul of an artist. Chaos is part of the world, and there is much to be learned, and much beauty to be discovered, by observing it. Chaos is an aspect of creation, while it is also the result of destruction.
Dada-ism is irrational, but not chaotic; again, I draw a distinction between decadent and chaotic, even though chaos is the ultimate state of decay. That's why it is so tiresome: It is destruction as a violent reaction against creativity, without ever transcending the original creation which it destroys to glimpse at what new is left behind.
Yet I find something worthwhile in much of Duchamp, because he is exploring the constituent parts of reality. It's just that by the mid-1920s, there wasn't much left to explore, and deconstuctionism turned into nonsense and simple bile. When the "bourgiose" (sp?) realized this, and turned their nose up at it, the would-be emporers just declared that they didn't "understand it."... with some credibility because much of modern art up to that point DID need to be understood. I don't intuitively know what is so great about cubism; it simply looks grotesque; but I can "get it" when I learned more.
Gimme Bob Ross any day.
Musta taken Bob 10-15 minutes to do that one, eh? (Don't get me wrong--I still can't get by his show when I'm channel surfing--I loved that guy; er...not literally).
Indeed...especially the one of the Chan's "First Light." That was a tough shot...
With the optional "happy little cabin," 20 minutes, tops.
You jerk :^)
(I mean that in a good way.)
Bob Ross, Frederick Church (19th cent. American master) and contemporary artist Joseph Raffael (b. 1933). See today's post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1589205/posts for more information about Raffael.
Leni
Basenjis are too cool to do Westminster. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.