SanArt

Now in its 75th year, the Whitney Biennial is still the big kahuna—the show every American artist wants to be in and every art lover wants to see. This year, the career-boosting show includes no Philadelphia artists. Instead, the curators of this national show sought talent in Chicago, Oregon, Los Angeles and, of course, New York. They rounded up 55 artists and, for the first time, more than half were women. Reflecting our times of war and global recession, the show is a somber parade, sometimes tedious, sometimes achingly beautiful, with a surprising number of photographers and video artists channeling anthropology á la Margaret Mead. It’s a good show—you should see it.

One of several Portland, OR artists in the Whitney Biennial. Storm Tharp, Pigeon (After Shunsen), 2009 Ink, gouache, and colored pencil on paper, 58 x 42 (147.3 x 106.7) Collection of the artist; courtesy PDX Contemporary Art, Portland

But why should you have to travel all the way to New York to see such a high-cailber show? Here’s an idea. Let’s have a Philadelphia Biennial—a large curated show of regional contemporary art hosted by all of our major art museums, organized by museum curators and with a catalog. Though staging a biennial in Philadelphia would be expensive, Whitney’s 75-year track record proves that it can be a lasting investment.

Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), recently spoke at a panel titled “Can the Arts Revive Our Cities and the Nation’s Economy?” Landesman and the other panelists—practitioners from Austin and New Orleans, an academic from Penn and the head of the National Council for the Traditional Arts—all delivered a resounding “Yes, we can.”  (More on that panel in another post. Meanwhile, read Gary Steuer’s post and the Inquirer’s story on the panel.)

The NEA is offering 15 grants of $250,000 to cities (including Philadelphia) to fund bold arts initiatives. Proposing a Philadelphia Biennial is just the kind of move that could win the city that money. PEI (Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiatives, an arm of Pew Trusts) could match that as an initial priming of the money pump locally. But it’s going to take more.

The Whitney Biennial 2010 is sponsored by Deutsche Bank, Tommy Hilfiger, Sothebys, a couple foundations and the Friends Committee of the Whitney Museum. Philadelphia corporations like Comcast, PNC Bank and others could step forward. Local donors and art museum trustees could create a Friends of the Philadelphia Biennial fund.

The exhibit could be at the Institute of Contemporary Art one year; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts the next; Philadelphia Museum of Art after that. It could be split between the museums and our premier big-box space, the Icebox at Crane Arts Center. There are no rules to break and creative thinking can pull this off.

Biennials, like museum shows in general, are democratic—they are shows for the people. A Philadelphia Biennial would bring the public to contemporary art and educate them about it. In the local art community, people bemoan the lack of educated art consumers in Philadelphia. Buying art is essential to retaining artists here and keeping the arts economy going and growing. Create the Philadelphia Biennial and you will be taking the first step in educating this new group of collectors.

What is needed to make this happen is leadership. Mayor Nutter and art czar Gary Steuer need to get on board and exert political clout. Financial leadership from foundations, the city, universities, corporations and private donors is a necessity.

Who is the audience for the Philadelphia Biennial? It’s the Flower Show attendees—people interested in the city, the arts, beauty and discourse about things that bring joy and meaning to life, that and the thousands of artists, gallerists, collectors, museum professionals and arts lovers in the region.

The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s research shows that people in this region spend twice as much on culture as they do on sporting events—and these same people report more satisfaction from those art events than from sporting events. Give the people what satisfies them—a grand, blockbuster contemporary art show to talk about for months with their friends.

If Whitney can do it, so can we. We have the beginnings of a model for this in Philagrafika 2010, the citywide print festival. It’s risky and it’s going to cost money, but the payback could be huge.

Read this story at Philadelphia Weekly.

If you’re still thinking there’s a big divide between art and crafts, the 7th International Fiber Biennial will set you straight. Much of the work reflects social and artistic concerns and all of it is beautifully made. The exhibit, at Snyderman Gallery, features fiber art from 61 artists, who come from as far away as Denmark and Korea, with 15 of them from the Philadelphia area.

Among my favorites are two pieces about America’s long-term contentious issue–race. One is from a white artist, one from an African American artist, and as always, the subject is loaded with feelings.

The African American artist, Sonya Clark, has stitched a growing series of afros onto the Abraham Lincoln etching on five-dollar bills in her wry piece Afro Abe Progression. (I’m sure this is illegal, but it’s a darned good use of money). The afro grows until it becomes a black shrub that dwarfs Angela Davis’. There’s the obvious relation to Ellen Gallagher’s visceral pieces of pomade-like goop for hair, but Clark uses a light touch here. Plus she gets in loads of content, from population shifts to financial power to black power. Abe stays Abe and does not morph into our current president, although I imagine Obama was part of the inspiration for this. The piece hovers between triumph and wariness.

Whereas Clark keeps her serious subject light, Stephen Beal, a white guy, does not, although both use needle work to make their points. Here’s the back-story behind Beal’s monumental piece: He discovered, via Google, that his great-great grandfather Rittenhouse Nutt was a slave holder. The Rev. Samuel Turner Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., it turns out, had the same great-great grandfather. Turner, who is a lawyer, discovered a document in a Mississippi courthouse that confirmed his family’s oral history–that his grandmother Frances Nutt was both a slave and a granddaughter of Rittenhouse Nutt. The two great-great grandsons met via Google. And Turner showed Beal the document, which itemized the estate of Fauntleroy Plantation owner Rittenhouse Nutt. Turner’s 16-year-old grandmother Frances Nutt was listed in the estate inventory.

Beal cross-stitched the deed text onto three somber rectangles, forming a sort of grave stone. He also cross stitched prayer flags in red, white, yellow and blue for each of the slaves named in the inventory, draping them over his memorial. Slaves and livestock are included with their monetary value in the inventory, including Old Millie, at 76 valued at zero, i.e. less than a table or a chair, let alone a hog. The piece is stark, unbeautiful (although meticulously crafted), and deeply moving.

A third piece about race is by Joyce Scott, who is always excellent and is the only other African American artist in the show. Her grotesque, small beaded sculptures, which combine comic and outsider aesthetics, are pointed and ambiguous all at once. The one here is no exception.

Identity is a big theme (isn’t it always), in other works as well. Mary Bero’s self-portrait, a stuffed and stitched head–puzzling, expressionist and 3-D all at once–gets at an unusual, arresting self-image. In contrast, Kate Anderson’s sweet little knotted house, also 3-D, uses stylized kitsch imagery to express identity and emotions. Pat dipaula Klein’s grid of hearts floating on a watery firmament gathers momentum from the turbulence of the stitching–a starry night of survival.

Broader social themes appear in Adam Cohen’s Super Army Ant, which we saw at Pulse last year. He uses comicbook vocabulary and embroidered camouflage fabric to make a political statement. And Katie Henry’s whimsical Music Together embroidery of animal-headed girls strumming on a park bench captures a social truth framed in an embroidery ring.

The show includes some fabulous clothing, embroidery, quilting, applique, macrame, the works of expected materials. And then there are the less expected materials:

Pat Hickman’s stitched gut sculptures range from droopy to elegant symmetry, and evoke bodies and vulnerability–and Eva Hesse. Yvonne Bobrowicz’ frothy sculptures capture light with strands of monofilament. Amy Orr continues her credit-card quilt series, taking on China and the economy. C. Pazia Mannella goes for a pieced zipper boa (I had seen this one previously at Fleisher-Ollman) and paper take-a-number ticket leis.

In addition, there’s work here by other luminaries such as Lia Cooke and the fabulous Ed Bing Lee, who has pushed his wizardry even farther, finding new roughness and textures for his mineral series.

Philadelphia area artists in the exhibit include Lee, Henry, Klein, Bobrowicz, Manella,  Orr, Leslie Grigsby, Diane Koppisch Hricko, Mi-Kyoung Lee, Nancy Middlebrook, Lewis Knauss, Kathryn Pannepacker, Leslie Pontz, Sophie Sanders, and Deborah Warner.

The show, which was curated by Snyderman Gallery Director Bruce Hoffman,  will remain up through March 20.

Now in its 75th go-round, The Whitney Biennial is still the big kahuna, the show every American artist wants to be in and every art lover wants to see. This year the career-boosting show includes no Philadelphia artist.   We had representation in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 — so much for that trend.  Instead, the curators went to Chicago, Oregon, Los Angeles and, of course, New York for the 55 artists, more than half of them women (a first) and many of them under the national radar.

One of the 28 women featured in this year's biennial, Aki Sasamoto, performed at the press preview. Strange Attractors, 2010. mixed media, dimensions variable, collection of the artist

The show is a somber parade, with some work that’s tedious and some that’s breath-takingly beautiful. A surprising number of artists are channeling anthropology ala Margaret Mead this year, a trend among Philadelphia artists as well — see Zoe Strauss, Sarah Stolfa, Phil Jackson and Gabe Martinez for starters.

Sharon Hayes. Parole, 2010. multi channel video, color, sound, 36 minutes. collection of the artist; courtesy Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin

Whether intended or not, this is a populist show dealing with issues of war, gender, alienation, the slipperiness of truth and longing – things very much on people’s minds. War victims show up in photographs of a disfigured American soldier by Nina Berman. Stephanie Sinclair’s photos of desperate Afghani women who self-immolate are stomach-wrenching. Sharon Hayes’ multi-channel videos about political protesters create a kind of faux-reportage that questions the reality of the news. The artist, a chunky, tousle-haired young woman, who appears throughout, exudes no star power but she’s charismatic. She’s the anti-Christiane Amanpour.

Rashaad Newsome. Untitled, 2009. silent single channel HD video, 8:07 min. collection of the artist: courtesy Ramis Barquet, NY

Some of the documentary films are mesmerizing, like Rashaad Newsome’s two silent videos of  “vogue” dancers — athletic young men in t-shirts and jeans who spin, twirl, prance and contort themselves for the camera from small prison-like rooms.  One of the dancers makes eye contact and just won’t break — it’s a challenge to pull yourself away. These silent pieces force you to concentrate on the dancers’ personalities and gender identities. Their stylized movements are not seductive but the perpetual motion alone casts a spell.  It’s all very poignant.

Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher BETTER DIMENSION, 2010. This cave-like installation, with a hollographic JFK head spinning above a music disc surrounded by projections of slides that look like they're of tissue samples — weird and satisfying. Silkscreened wood panels, four ektapro slide projectors, one 16 mm eiki projector, resin and steel projection screen. 102×236x276" courtesy of the artists, Gagosian Gallery, NY

Ari Marcopoulos’ video, on the other hand, is static, colorful and loud. But it, too is hypnotic. The piece documents two teenage boys making noise music in their Detroit bedroom and, in a nice touch of curatorial pairing, the sonic screeches of Marcopoulos’ video wash over the nearby photographs of suburban tract houses by James Casebere — the very houses this noise might be coming from.

Josephine Meckseper. Mall of America, 2009. video, color, sound, transferred to DVD, 12:48 min. collection of the artist, courtesy V6 Bild-Kunst, Bonn

The bone-rattling machine noise soundtrack of Josephine Meckseper’s video “Mall of America,” turns what is a rather beautiful (albeit ham-handed) slap at capitalism into something mesmerizing as well. Maybe I didn’t have enough coffee the day we saw the show but I felt myself grow roots when watching this one even though I knew its message was nothing new.

Roland Flexner, a work I saw at Gallery Joe in 2007. untitled 2007 sumi ink on paper 5 3/4 x 7"

Roland Flexner’s wall of small sumi ink landscapes is the oasis into which you can escape. These drawings (like some of Flexner’s I’d seen Gallery Joe) are dark, dreamy paradise scenes. Sublime with a bit of threat they are not afraid of beauty or the infinite, something we’re very much in need of.

R.H. Quaytman R. H. Quaytman, Chapter 12: iamb, 2008. Oil, silkscreen, and gesso on wood, 32 3/8 x 20 in. (82.2 x 51 cm). Collection of Laura Belgray and Steven Eckler; courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York. Photograph by John Berens (Image of representative piece)

Tedium sets in with several inclusions that seem to be there merely to toot the museum’s own horn. I have to believe Maureen Gallace’s chalky and standard-issue landscape paintings are there to call attention to the Whitney’s Edward Hopper and Milton Avery holdings (you can see Hopper in the Whitney Collects show on the museum’s fifth floor.) R. H. Quaytman’s photo collage prints, which feature the museum’s Marcel Breuer-designed windows, likewise seem geared to feature the museum as much as the artist.

Whitney Biennial 2010 catalog — with the majority of pages devoted to other biennials.

But really, the Whitney Biennial has always been about the Whitney Museum. As if to prove that point, the show’s catalog ($45, softcover) devotes more than half its pages to past biennials. This book is a big disappointment. With eight shiny card stock “billboard” pages inside showing nothing but a horrible concentric square design in black and grey with a photo (in green and white) of the sitting American president at the time of biennials in 1930, 40, 50, etc, the book is borderline annoying.  And with more than half of it devoted to press clippings about past biennials — and pages and pages of lists of names of who was in each and every biennial — the book seems an almost desperate attempt at institutional cheerleading.  I don’t know, maybe you have to remind people how wonderful you are when you’re in the middle of a big capital campaign.

Charles Ray, Untitled, 2009. Ink on paper, 47 x 31 1/2 in. (119.4 x 80 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (Image of representative piece)

The biggest disappointment of the Biennial is Charles Ray’s drawings of flowers, or something that looks like flowers drawn by a teenage girl who just got a new set of magic markers. I read Peter Schejldahl in the New Yorker (see and hear his audio slide show here) and I’m not convinced. The work is slight and bad to look at, and this from an artist whose sculptures can knock it out of the ballpark. I don’t get it.

Robert Williams The Inside Out House, 2009. watercolor on paper. 14×17" collection of the artist; courtesy Tony Shafrazi Gallery, NY. We saw works by Williams at Art Basel Miami. Asking price, $10,000 each. I am not shocked to see them in this show. We saw lots of Biennial artists' works at the NY art fairs.

Biennials are a way for museums to claim the leadership they once had from the marketplace (art fairs/auctions) which has taken over defining what’s good and worthy. There should be more biennials. That said, no curated group show is “the answer” to the big mystery of what is art today. But, bottom line, a curated show will give you more satisfaction than the art fairs will.

More photos at Flickr.
>>Whitney Biennial 2010, to May 30. Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Ave. at 75th St. New York, NY 212 570 3600

Billowing on banners, printed on posters and featured in multiple venues around Sydney, the artwork of Scott Elk is enjoying great exposure, and for good reason. The Sydney-born artist’s illustrations mix media from photography to screen prints, from design elements to typography. The modern amalgams instantly come across as multi-layered works reflecting a depth of thought and artistic practice. Whether exploring issues of queer identity or playing with variations in typography, Scott Elk represents a leading voice in queer art through his powerful and evocative work.

Scott Elk, Mardi Gras 2010 Season Posters: Rocco D'Amore as the Gay Clone, Mini Cooper as Marlene Dietrich, and Rob Magee as Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Courtesy of the artist.

As the commissioned creative force behind the poster images of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2010, Scott Elk created six characters to illustrate this year’s broad theme: The History of the World. Recreating and modernizing icons from (gay) history, Elk used styled photos (in which models posed as Neptune, Joan of Arc, the Vitruvian Man, Queen Elizabeth I, Marlene Dietrich and a Tom Finland-like gay clone) to produce historic-looking screen prints complete with a modern graphic edge.   The roughly black, red and white prints on view in their original form at the Mardi Gras Gallery at Tap Gallery until March 6 (and in a modified form on banners and posters) set up a very fertile dialogue between present and past, text and image, and explore ideas of queer history and gender identity.

Scott Elk, History of the World Series: 'Gay Clone' and 'Elizabeth', 2010. Hand Screen prints, 52 x 52 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

In his uncommissioned artistic work, Elk focuses more on the geography of numbers, variations in typography and their relationship to the human world. His hand-painted numbers (numbers being a fount of fascination for the artist) create their own universe. The artist produces multi-faceted work (playing with bingo sheets as a backdrop) that captivates and inspires in its complexity and its brute honesty.

Scott Elk, Detail from 'Cocaine Sex Pest / I Mean I Love You.' Mixed Media on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Work drawn from Bingo v2.0: The Seedy Underworld of Subculture and Sex by Numbers depicts a landscape where numbers crowd around individuals in various states of undress and involved in different degrees of fetish. The numbered landscape, on large, immersive, life-sized canvases, serves as a metaphor for the degree to which the binary code of computers floods our lives, as well as an exploration of the meaning of numbers in relationships. Previously masterfully installed as a continuous mural at the Urban Uprising Gallery, Elk’s design-inspired work is now broken up but still strike with attitude from the walls of the Clarence Hotel until March 7 and at The Midnight Shift in Saddle Bar indefinitely.

Scott Elk, 'Untitled Beadie 02' and 'I Inherited the Feature Wall From my Mother.' Mixed Media on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Scott Elk, Detail from 'He Only Loves Me When I'm Leaving Him / I Fucken Love it When He Comes.' Courtesy of artist's website.

Elk’s voice and vision are undeniably strong and unique. The Australian artist is undertaking a very mature exploration of complicated issues of the representation of the body, gay identity and subcultures using his own language of numbers and his own style of imagery. To witness Scott Elk’s work is to become immersed in a fascinating and powerful landscape, one that plumbs the depth of contemporary life in an edgy, honest and modern way.

Scott Elk, 'Closing.' Mixed Media on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Visit Scott’s website for news of his latest exhibitions. A selection of work is currently on view at the gay club called Midnight Shift in The Saddle Bar, 85 Oxford Street.

Alexander Arrechea’s installation, Orange Tree, occupied Crane Arts‘ huge Icebox as well as the Grey Box leading to it from Jan. 21-Feb. 21, 2010, and it definitely held its ground within that vast space.  Arrechea’s work, combining suggestions of menace and the high-tech production values of the latest Hollywood movie, rose to the challenge of the monumental scale.  On entering the darkened Grey Box visitors were confronted with Black Sun (2009), a silent video projection of a swinging wrecking ball that marked time in the exhibition like a destructive pendulum.

Alexander Arrechea, front room of 'Orange Tree' installation at Crane

On the walls around it were three huge drawings and a digital print, all executed with tromp l’oeil virtuosity.  Almohada (Pillow) (2005) and T-Shirt (2005) are watercolors depicting vastly-enlarged versions of the named objects, bound with measuring tape.  I can’t say exactly why the form of the bound pillow evoked a trussed corpse, but the association was undeniable (I made me think of David Hammons ). Birds (2009) is a c-print referring to the camera-bearing tree in Garden of Mistrust, a video projection in the large space beyond.  It creates the illusion of a piece of marbleized paper cut into the silhouette of the tree and pinned to a black background.

Alexander Arrechea ' Almohada' (Pillow) (2005) watercolor 66×44 in.

The Icebox space contained Orange Tree (2010), a towering, multi-limbed “tree” sprouting nineteen basketball hoops, rather than branches, surrounded by balls which looked liked fallen fruit.  Facing it was a similar-sized video projection of Garden of Mistrust (2007), an earlier “tree” with constantly-moving video surveillance cameras substituting for branches.  Both are obviously urban species, and strange mutations.  If the increasing use of cameras is a way of keeping urban youth under control, basketball is one route they take to make their way within and out of the ghetto.  It is unclear whether basketball will empower these players or ensnare them in the corporate control of professional sports.

Alexander Arrechea, rear room of 'Orange Tree'

Arrechea’s world is one of illusion, often invoked in the name of power.  The mutant forms and shifting scale create an intentional unease.  He has previously dealt with the equipment and spaces of sports, those arenas and stadiums where boys and men play out their manhood, where symbolic wars are fought and national passions aroused.  Raised within the state control of Castro’s Cuba, Arrechea is sensitive to the control that corporate power and fear have imposed on more open states in Europe and America. The project, curated by Anabelle Rodriguez, was the first in the International Curatorial Exchange at Crane Building, and a roaring start it was.

Alexander Arrechea 'Orange Tree' (2010)

Miller Lagos’ Silence Doogood at the Arthur Ross Gallery, U.  of  Pennsylvania

Miller Lagos’ 'Silence Doogood' during fabrication

Miller Lagos’ Silence Doogood at the Arthur Ross Gallery (the title was one of Benjamin Franklin’s pen names) through March 21, 2010 is the product of the artist’s residency at the University of  Pennsylvania, and one of the independent projects of Philagrafika He worked with fine arts students to paste a ton of newspaper pages together and wind them into a huge roll which he sculpted to resemble a cross-section of a huge tree, although I needed to read the label copy to discover that.  The gallery also contains stacks of newspapers sitting in the form a cube; walking around the pile the visitor discovers that a group of paper has been removed, resulting in a shape that reads as a throne (a sort of ur throne that a child might make).  A video of Lagos working with the students and a short introduction by Lynn D. Marsden-Atlass, director of the gallery and Jose Roca, curator of Philagrafika, is shown beside the entrance.  It can be seen on Youtube . .

Miller Lagos is clearly a charismatic teacher and the project appears to have been a pedagogic success. Jose Roca remarked that Lagos’ work reminds us that paper comes from trees; if the students  hadn’t learned that in grade school, it was probably a useful lesson.  They clearly saw the power of one artist to transform materials and gained experience with the shared vision and coordinated work required by such labor-intensive art, which they could never attempt within an educational system marked by semesters. The final  product, however, was a bit thin as a gallery presentation.  That’s a shame, because Lagos’ previous work sculpted from recycled newspaper is very impressive.  The notion that the work deals with the dissemination of knowledge via newspapers may have been impressed upon the student collaborators, but did not come through as a significant focus in the work on display.

Things are getting lively at the Penn Museum.  I’ve just heard the museum is inviting the public (18 and older – not sure who they’re protecting – this morning’s BBC World Service carried a story about a company that’s marketing extra-small condoms for young users) to join in a discussion of what an exhibition on human sexuality might encompass; that sounds too interesting for artists and museum studies students to pass up! What about Sex(uality)? will be held at the museum on Tuesday, March 23 from 4:30 to 6:00 pm.  Several distinguished experts will discuss four objects from the collection, including an Indian linga and Ancient Egyptian papyrus containing a story of a sexual encounter between two gods, which includes imagery of gender mutability. Participants will be allowed to examine the objects then formulate their own questions about them. Pre-registration is required.  Check it out here.

Lakota pipe bag with image of double woman Penn Museum

Here’s my pick for First Friday.  See more picks at the Weekly here.

“Dead Flowers”

Sixties underground film icon Tim Carey rocketed to fame with his ability to portray crazy. His brief moments on screen opposite Marlon Brando in The Wild One and James Dean in East of Eden made him a legendary Hollywood ham. Generally, though, the actor and director spurned mainstream movies for work in the film underground where he wrote, directed and starred in the cult classic The World’s Greatest Sinner, a movie in which a man with a God complex gets his comeuppance.

Marti Domination, "Eyelashes," c-print by Marti Domination 2010

Carey—honored this month in the group show “Dead Flowers” at Vox Populi—died in 1994 at age 65, and the Vox exhibit showcases memorabilia from the artist’s career as well as work by contemporary leaders in today’s underground art scene, including Scott Ewalt (who appeared in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 2) and Marti Domination (Cremaster 1). The opening includes performances by some of the featured artists. (Roberta Fallon)

6-11pm. Through March 31. Vox Populi, 319 N. 11th St., third fl. 215.238.1236

Hello again, just another little note to say we are going to the NY art fairs tomorrow and Friday.  So the blog may be quiet.  We do have delegated body doubles who will cover First Friday openings for us.  Stay tuned–we’re very excited about this new development.

Little Berlin’s website now had the podcast of Saturday night’s community meeting on juried shows.  The podcast is 81 minutes long and it’s downloadable.   Arcadia University Gallery Director Richard Torchia was at the meeting to talk about the jurying of the recent Works on Paper show about which rumors were swirling on the internet .  He was informative, thought-provoking and entertaining, especially with a story about a juried show where the jurors decided everybody was in — and the artists were pissed!

Hello artblog campers, we’ve got our picks entered on artblog’s maps & listings. Our picks, in case you’re wondering, are our curated selections based on what was submitted to our maps and listings. We generally make these choices Monday before First Friday so if you want your show in the running be sure to get it listing on time.