{"id":1709,"date":"2010-05-03T11:39:05","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T18:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2010\/05\/the_whitneys_lovely_75th_bienn\/"},"modified":"2010-05-03T11:39:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T18:39:05","slug":"the_whitneys_lovely_75th_bienn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2010\/05\/the_whitneys_lovely_75th_bienn.html","title":{"rendered":"The Whitney’s 75th Biennial birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pared to 55 artists or artists’ groups, the Whitney’s 75th Biennial<\/a> has no theme to refute, discuss, praise or satirize. Freed from anyone’s definitions but their own, the artists were chosen for their ability to grip down, waken and start a conversation in each other’s company. <\/p>\n

Everybody succeeded, the sole exception being Charles Ray<\/a> and his gallery full of  inexplicable flower paintings<\/a>. I love Ray, but if these weren’t his, their monotony would have guaranteed their exclusion. Ray’s work is charts thinking, not noodling. Just because he can draw doesn’t mean he should. Everybody else, however, produced something that hangs on to its moment, blooming either right away or afterward, in the mind.<\/p>\n

Here are a few highlights.<\/p>\n

Attention, Shoppers: Josephine Meckseper’s 12-minute 2009 video, Mall of America<\/i><\/a>, is set in the afterlife of those who worship consumption. They’re there and not there as colors bleed around bright objects of desire that are ever present but unavailable. <\/p>\n

\"mallofamerica.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s post-Beuys’ We Like America
\nand
\nAmerica Likes Us<\/i><\/a>, a white hearse with a video in the windshield, sports cutting commentary on American culture in a comical vein.<\/p>\n

Rashaad Newsome, Untitled (New Way)<\/i><\/a>, 2009. Single channel
\nhigh-definition, color, silent video; 6:48 min. He needs no music, because the music’s in his motions, all culturally coded African American. They are silky supple and tough as nails.<\/p>\n

\"rashaadnewsome.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Instead of just building something, Kate Gilmore prefers the pleasure of knocking it down, stomping through it in a party dress and liberating color. Still image from Standing Here<\/i><\/a>, 2010. Mixed-media sculpture with video, color,
\nsound, dimensions variable.<\/p>\n

\"kategilmorewhit.jpg\"<\/p>\n

What if one person were a kind of weather? Kelly Nipper, Weather Center<\/i><\/a>, 2009. Single channel video projection,
\nblack and white, sound; 5:11. Dance performed by Taisha Paggett and
\ncostume by Leah Piehl.<\/p>\n

\"kellynipperdan.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Ty Ziegel nearly burned to death in Iraq after a bomb attack. Instead of dying, he lives in a body whose skin is pudding. Photographer Nina Berman<\/a> documented his (brief) marriage to his high-school sweetheart. She wanted to come through but in the end, just like us, couldn’t.<\/p>\n

Nina Berman, Ty with gun<\/i>, 2008, from Marine Wedding<\/i><\/a>, 2006\/2008.
\nPigment print, 10 \u00d7 15 in. (25.4 \u00d7 38.1 cm)<\/p>\n

\"whitninaberman.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Heir to James Ensor<\/a> but painting on the elegant end of that form of grotesque, Storm Tharp <\/a>gives his monstrous faces the grace of Fred Astaire. (He’s at a big disadvantage in this show, sharing a gallery with video artist Marianne Vitale<\/a>, whose mode is screaming.)<\/p>\n

\"stormtharpjod.jpg\"My favorite sign in a museum hangs next to Aki Sasamoto’s installation, Secrets of My Mother’s Child<\/i><\/a>, 2009: <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/o:p>Please remain alert when the artist is performing
\nin this
\nspace. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jessica Jackson Hutchins<\/a>‘ work appears to derive almost entirely from a nose: the grandfather’s warty proboscis in Domencio Ghirlandaio’s 1490 portrait<\/a>. Living things are lovely for a moment. Hutchins’ ceramics sag. On a couch, they’re potatoes. <\/p>\n

\"jessicajackcouch.jpg\"Three more wonderful painters: Lesley Vance<\/a>, Jim Lutes<\/a> and Pae White<\/a>. Vance punches out from the inside of 17th Century Spanish stilllife. Lutes favors Mark Tobey<\/a> but with a B-movie heart, and White is shoveling seductive tendrils of smoke.
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I’ve just scratched the surface here. Be sure to see current Biennial curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari’s Collecting Biennials<\/a> on the fifth floor, in honor of the 75th-year marker. If the art world could be said to rest of turtles, there are major turtles here, all the way down. <\/p>\n

David Hammons<\/a>, Untitled<\/i>, 1992. Copper, wire, hair, stone, fabric, and
\nthread, height 60 in. (152.4 cm)<\/p>\n

\"davidhammonswhit.jpg\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pared to 55 artists or artists’ groups, the Whitney’s 75th Biennial has no theme to refute, discuss, praise or satirize. Freed from anyone’s definitions but their own, the artists were chosen for their ability to grip down, waken and start a conversation in each other’s company. Everybody succeeded, the sole exception being Charles Ray and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}