Whitney -part one

My first Biennial
What to say. Simply being in New York and keeping an eye on the process of first, the selection of curators, then general banter in bars over what will happen, subsequently leading to the artist selections being released and now finally the show, predictably leading to all sorts of bitchiness, boredom and disinterest along with a review here and there by both artists and critics, things seem to be just about on track.
Now to wait while the mistakes slowly disseminate themselves into the market, burning themselves out to leave the strongest surviving. It’s beginning to sound like a battle ground is’nt it. Well in some ways it is. The good work really does stand out. Further research into the bad work simply makes it even worse. A closer look, should you wish to depress yourself, will reveal frequent use of the naive, the abject and the complete lack of skill, concept or even thought.
Come on Chrisi! What made you think when you saw that work by Miles Davis that it would really fit in or look good in the Whitney, hung at its low low level that you had to stoop to see some of the Basquiatian scrawl at the bottom. Not to mention the adolescent drawings of a simple badly told depressing fairy tale by Taylor Meade. Daniel Johnston had a go too- with a group of A4 drawings in felt tip pens, supposedly reminiscent not only of himself but also our time.
The work that stuck in my mind the most was 1st Light by Paul Chan: intelligent use of a projector with an animation that was gentle, subtle and well coordinated with the installation, the medium and its subject matter, well installed and stunningly made. Robert Gober has a series of photographs, which were the quiet from the storm. Parts of the installation made you feel like you were in a shopping mall. The substantial doses of teenage angst here and there with bad drawing and lack of skill didn’t really serve to impress me over all. Many went for the shock factors of sex and death. The Wrong gallery produced a show that was intelligent and straightforward getting its message across and its political opinions with skill.
Richard Serra’s drawing simply stating, “stop b sh”. A clear message that really here I am sure was speaking to the converted, and if they weren’t already did they really look – or even dare to go inside the Whitney. Some were offended by the overt political tones, but I cant speak to that.
I got the catalogue too. So far so good-some good essays on contemporary work, with the book designed to be pulled apart, to reveal fold out posters, one by each artist on the show.
Is’nt it ironic that now we need to design the catalogues so that they fall apart- lasting only a short time. Makes sense-this way we’ll have enough mental and physical space for the next Show.
More later on this.