This exhibition heralds a new approach to considering the production of work in the setting of the Capella MACBA. All the exhibitions will share the common denominator of having been specifically produced to be shown in this space. The work produced by Armando Andrade Tudela, Peruvian artist living between Berlin and Saint-Étienne (France), includes two 16-mm films (transferred onto DVD) recently made and a wall piece Untitled (Two frames #2) (2010), all framed by an architecture also designed by the artist for the occasion.
March 16 – April 24, 2010 Opening: Tuesday, March 16, 6 – 8 PM Web Site
In 1969, one year before her death at the age of 34, German-born American artist Eva Hesse wrote of her desire “to get to non-art, non-connotive, non-anthropomorphic, non-geometric, non-nothing; everything…It’s not the new, it is what is yet not known, thought, seen, touched; but really what is not and that is.” In her effort to make works that could transcend literal associations, Hesse cultivated mistakes and surprise, precariousness and enigma. The objects she produced, at once humble and enormously charismatic, came to play a central role in the transformation of contemporary art practice.
Hauser & Wirth New York is presenting exhibition of such objects: Eva Hesse brings together fourteen works, many never before shown publicly in the United States, that previously have been considered improvisational ‘test pieces’ or prototypes for larger sculptures. Of these, eleven are delicate papier caché forms – wisps of assembled paper, tape, cheesecloth and adhesive made between 1966 and 1969 – that are neither round nor rectangular, but indeterminate. Intimate manifestations of the artist’s thought process, they evoke the bodily, suggesting fragments of skull, sheaths of timeworn parchment, tablets awaiting manuscript, curving shadows, the lens of an eyeball. These objects evade easy definition: They have been seen variously as experiments, little pieces, molds, tests for larger works, or finished works in their own right. In her recent research on Hesse’s work, prominent British art historian Briony Fer has renamed these objects collectively as ‘studioworks,’ proposing that their precarious nature places them at the very heart of Hesse’s influential practice and raises important questions about traditional notions of what constitutes sculpture.
Eva Hesse will present its contents upon a plinth that loosely alludes to how these works may have been encountered in Hesse’s studio, temporarily arranged in groups on the artist’s work table, always subject to change. The objects in this exhibition will be included in the museum survey ‘Eva Hesse: Studioworks’ at Fundació Antoni Tapies in Barcelona (May 14 – August 1, 2010), the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto (September 10, 2010 – January 2, 2011), and the Berkeley Art Museum in California (January 26 – April 24, 2011).
In New York in the 1960s, Hesse was among a group of artists, including Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and Robert Smithson, who engaged materials that were originally soft and flexible: aluminum, latex rubber, plastic, lead, polythene, copper, felt, chicken-wire, dirt, sawdust, paper pulp and glue. Often unstable, these elements yielded works forever alive in their relativity and mutability. Hesse was aware she produced objects that were ephemeral, but this problem was of less concern to her than the desire to exploit materials with a temporal dimension. Much of the tumescent, life-affirming power of Hesse’s art derives from this confident embrace of moment. As she stated in an interview with Cindy Nemser in 1970, “Life doesn’t last; art doesn’t last.”
A conference by the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki Finland, in
collaboration with the Finnish Bioart Society and Pixelache festival.
Time: 24-25.3.2010 10-17h
Location: Auditorium, Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Kaikukatu 4.
Accessible for everyone and free entry
Detailed schedule and more information:
www.kuva.fi www.kilpiscope.net www.pixelache.fi
Keynotes by Roy Ascott and Jill Scott
The beginning of the 21st century is characterized by an overwhelming
awareness of environmental issues. Facing the threat of global warming,
the findings of scientific research have become a subject of intensive
political debate. The ethical questions traditionally discussed in the
green-wing marginals have become mainstream, as science has become a
coffee-table topic.
The field of art that interacts with the practices of science and its
technologies is commonly referred to as ART&SCIENCE. During the past
decades, this hybrid field has become more or less established, with
landmark works, major institutions and written histories. However, with
the new wave of environmentalism, a further wave of artists working with
methods and questions related to scientific research has also emerged.
The conference seeks to contextualize the practices of ART&SCIENCE both
in the contemporary political atmosphere and the history of contemporary
art.
The first day of the two-day conference focuses on the practices in
transformation as a result of research-orientation and
cross-disciplinarity, characteristic to the field of ART&SCIENCE.
The second day of the conference looks at the technologies of encounter
between human and non-human worlds. The aim is to address the ethical
discourse taking place in art practices which look at the interaction
between humans and non-humans.
Speakers include:
Pau Alsina (researcher, ESP)
Roy Ascott (artist, theorist, UK)
Laura Beloff (artist, researcher, FI)
Erich Berger (artist, coordinator ArsBioarctica, AUT/FI)
Andy Gracie (artist, UK/ESP)
Terike Haapoja (artist, FI)
Eija Juurola (forest researcher, FI)
Jan Kaila (artist, professor, FI)
Tuija Kokkonen (theatre director, FI)
Minna Långström (artist, lecturer, FI
Anu Osva (artist, FI)
Ingeborg Reichle (art historian, DE)
Antti Sajantila (professor, medical doctor, FI)
Jill Scott (artist, researcher, AUS/CH)
Helena Sederholm (professor, FI)
Raitis Smits (artist, curator, LV)
Ulla Taipale (curator, FI/ESP)
Manu Tamminen (microbiologist, FI)
Adam Zaretsky (artist, US)
Contact
Erich Berger
Coordinator ArsBioarctica
eb@randomseed.org
http://kilpiscope.net
ART AND TECHNOSCIENCE
- taiteen muuttuvat praktiikat
Kansainvälinen konferenssi, järjestäjänä Suomen Kuvataideakatemia,
yhteistyössä Biotaiteen seuran ja Pikseliähky – festivaalin kanssa
Aika: 24-25.3.2010 10-17h
Paikka: Auditorium, Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Kaikukatu 4.
Tilaisuus on avoin yleisölle. Vapaa pääsy.
Konferenssiohjelma ja tarkemmat tiedot osoitteissa:
www.kuva.fi www.kilpiscope.net www.pixelache.fi
Keynotes: Roy Ascott ja Jill Scott
2000-luvun alkua leimaa ympäristökysymysten voimallinen
politisoituminen. Ilmastonmuutoksen edessä tieteellisestä
tutkimuksesta on tullut poliittisen tarkastelun kohde ja kiihkeiden
väittelyiden välikappale. Perinteisesti vihreään marginaaliin liitetyt
aiheet ovat virranneet valtavirtaan, samalla kun tieteestä on tullut
kahvipöytäkeskustelujen puheenaihe.
Tieteen ja teknologian suhteita tarkasteleva, leimallisesti monialainen
ja poikkitieteinen nykytaiteenalue otsikoidaan usein sananparilla
ART&SCIENCE. Viime vuosikymmenten aikana tämä perinteisiä genrerajoja
ylittävä kenttä on vakiinnuttanut asemansa: merkkiteokset ja alan
instituutiot ovat jo osa taiteen kirjoitettua historiaa.
Ympäristökysymysten politisoitumisen myötä on kuitenkin noussut esiin
uusi aalto tieteen ja sen teknologioiden parissa työskenteleviä
taiteilijoita.
Konferenssi pyrkii hahmottamaan art&science -kentän praktiikoita sekä
suhteessa ajankohtaisiin poliittisiin kysymyksiin, että nykytaiteen
perinteisiin.
Konferenssin ensimmäinen päivä keskittyy taiteen muuttuviin
praktiikoihin tutkimuksellisuuden ja poikkitieteellisyyden seurauksena.
Konferenssin toinen päivä tarkastelee ihmisen ja ei-inhimillisen
suhteita määrittäviä kohtaamisen teknologioita ja niitä eettisiä
kysymyksiä, joita ihmisen ja ei-inhimillisen suhteita tieteen kehyksessä
käsittelevä taide nostaa esiin.
Konferenssin puhujina ovat mm.
Pau Alsina (tutkija, ESP)
Roy Ascott (taiteilija, teoreetikko, UK)
Laura Beloff (taiteilija, tutkija FI)
Erich Berger (taiteilija, suunnittelija ArsBioarctica, AUT/FI)
Andy Gracie (taiteilija, UK/ESP)
Terike Haapoja (taiteilija, tutkija FI)
Eija Juurola (MTT, ekologi, FI)
Jan Kaila (taiteilija, professori, KuvA, FI)
Tuija Kokkonen (ohjaaja, FI)
Minna Långström (taiteilija, lehtori KuvA, FI)
Anu Osva (taiteilija, FI)
Ingeborg Reichle (taidehistorioitsija, DE)
Antti Sajantila (oikeuslääketieteen professori, FI)
Jill Scott (taiteilija, tutkija, AUS/CH)
Helena Sederholm (professori, FI)
Raitis Smits (taiteilija, kuraattori, LV)
Ulla Taipale (kuraattori, FI/ESP)
Manu Tamminen (mikrobiologi, FI)
Adam Zaretsky (taiteilija, US)
Yhteystiedot:
Erich Berger
suunnittelija, ArsBioarctica
eb@randomseed.org
http://kilpiscope.net
Terike Haapoja
kuvataiteilija, KuvA
mail@terikehaapoja.net
http://kuva.fi
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.
The Guild Art Gallery 45 West 21st Street, #39, second floor, 212-229-2110
Chelsea
March 11 – April 13, 2010 Opening: Thursday, March 11, 6:30 – 8:30 PM Web Site
The Guild Art Gallery is pleased to present, Domus Vulgus, the New York debut show of Contemporary India artist Apnavi Thacker. Born in Bombay, India and brought up in Geneva, Switzerland, Apnavi Thacker grew up benefiting from two very different cultures. Her experiences in both cities have had a major impact on her work. Apnavi is a self-taught artist, although she gained valuable knowledge and experience during her two years of training under the guidance of Bose Krishnamachari. Her work addresses such issues as the possible link between a woman and her self-confidence and level of comfort with her sexuality, and the impact of urban development on the environment.
Her work retains a focus on street art, common in most cities around the world although it remains non-existent in Bombay. Apnavi has exhibited in Bombay in both solo and group shows. This includes the Mumbai Festival in 2005, for which she was commissioned to do a single piece inspired by her thoughts on the city of Bombay, and the Kala Ghoda festival in 2006 for which she created an installation consisting of urinals. The works represent a continuation of themes based on urban development.
For DOMUSVULGUS, Thacker will literally recreate a shack, similar to the ones seen in slum dwellings of the city of Mumbai, India, as well as paintings. Being a street artist Thacker has developed a keen eye for urban environments and in particular what society would term as urban decay – meaning the vast slum areas that are now synonymous with urban construction and the landscape of Mumbai. Her initial practice as an artist in Switzerland exposed her to street art and graffiti something that is virtually non-existent in India. Thackers work therefore amalgamates the visual aesthetic of street art from one culture and the literal visual and functional aspects of street culture in another, to conjure up strongly individualistic, socio-political statements.
About her work, Thacker says:
Through my work I want to be able to provide an insight on the dichotomy of these two lifestyles and thereby the blatant socio-economic barrier that divides them. An underlying theme which is equally important is the use of space by the two disparate segments of society… My canvas works are often dark but they’re not negative. They are reflections of my thought process and the struggle within me to adapt to the great dichotomy which is Bombay.
The Guild Art Gallery 45 West 21st Street, #39, second floor, 212-229-2110
Chelsea
March 11 – April 13, 2010 Opening: Thursday, March 11, 6:30 – 8:30 PM Web Site
The Guild Art Gallery is pleased to present, Domus Vulgus, the New York debut show of Contemporary India artist Apnavi Thacker. Born in Bombay, India and brought up in Geneva, Switzerland, Apnavi Thacker grew up benefiting from two very different cultures. Her experiences in both cities have had a major impact on her work. Apnavi is a self-taught artist, although she gained valuable knowledge and experience during her two years of training under the guidance of Bose Krishnamachari. Her work addresses such issues as the possible link between a woman and her self-confidence and level of comfort with her sexuality, and the impact of urban development on the environment.
Her work retains a focus on street art, common in most cities around the world although it remains non-existent in Bombay. Apnavi has exhibited in Bombay in both solo and group shows. This includes the Mumbai Festival in 2005, for which she was commissioned to do a single piece inspired by her thoughts on the city of Bombay, and the Kala Ghoda festival in 2006 for which she created an installation consisting of urinals. The works represent a continuation of themes based on urban development.
For DOMUSVULGUS, Thacker will literally recreate a shack, similar to the ones seen in slum dwellings of the city of Mumbai, India, as well as paintings. Being a street artist Thacker has developed a keen eye for urban environments and in particular what society would term as urban decay – meaning the vast slum areas that are now synonymous with urban construction and the landscape of Mumbai. Her initial practice as an artist in Switzerland exposed her to street art and graffiti something that is virtually non-existent in India. Thackers work therefore amalgamates the visual aesthetic of street art from one culture and the literal visual and functional aspects of street culture in another, to conjure up strongly individualistic, socio-political statements.
About her work, Thacker says:
Through my work I want to be able to provide an insight on the dichotomy of these two lifestyles and thereby the blatant socio-economic barrier that divides them. An underlying theme which is equally important is the use of space by the two disparate segments of society… My canvas works are often dark but they’re not negative. They are reflections of my thought process and the struggle within me to adapt to the great dichotomy which is Bombay.
Be sure to check out the terrific videos of the other of the honorees which include Kathryn Bigelow, Nora Ephron, Green Day, Narciso Rodriguez, Dan Barber, Yves Behar, Angela Brooks, Jessica Jackley, and Alex Rigopulos & Eran Egozy.
In 2009, artist Nina Schwanse relocated from New York City/Philadelphia to New Orleans to continue her video practice at the University of New Orleans. Her work refreshes the typically didactic terrain of mediated female objectification with verbal and visual wit. With each video, she channels a fascination with notoriety into an ongoing exploration of self-representation—an ontological dilemma faced in social contexts of all scales, but especially the macro that is increasingly common in our technological age of instant and accidental celebrity.
In her words, she aims to “restructure the narrative and formal language of news media, advertising, and pornography to create disjunctive portraits that intend to disappoint the expected course of entertainment,” and while doing so, she evokes personas that are genuinely entertaining. She plays most of these characters herself, limiting the degree to which they are allowed to present themselves on camera. When they address the viewer in first person, their speech is matched with speechless modeling, a separation whose tension produces caricatures that resonate beyond superficiality.
k-a-t-e(s) (11 mins., 2010)
Schwanse becomes the pantheon of celebrity Kates who congeal as a somewhat multi-faceted contemporary definition of the name. Her Kates offer deadpan excerpts of their biographies, personal PR, and, of course, humility.
My Happy Family (13 mins., 2009)
Edited outtakes of the artist’s moderately tomboyish sister at about ten years old, in rehearsal for a 1990s pizza commercial directed by her father and co-starring Amanda Bynes (whose severity amidst giggles foreshadows her career as a Disney star). Prompts from off-screen steer the girl’s descriptions of a happy family and the perfect boyfriend away from her own values and towards comically preordained norms like a big white house, children, and pizza by candlelight.
Homegrown (1 min., 2009)
Following the weird tropes of TV call girl ads down to their promises of consummate availability and their scintillating syntax, Schwanse merchandises a female figure—whose head is occluded by a giant, gothic bonnet—in various pastoral flavors and settings.
If I Knew Then (3 mins., 2008)
With a self-proclaimed interest in women “from the pre-internet age of the tabloid 1990s,” Schwanse styles herself as Amy Fisher and monologues on the art of being Amy Fisher, or the work of being the artist Amy Fisher, depending on how you see it and her. “Artists work hard, you know? You have to work hard to be hot.”
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.
