The Whitney Biennial 2008
Where’s the Paint?
I made it up to the Whitney on member-preview day shortly after the noon opening for the 2008 Whitney Biennial. The first impression that sticks with me was the show’s relative lack of paintings. Since I’m a painter and I like to look at paintings more than anything else, this focus on other media almost necessarily limited the amount of enjoyment and interest I would find in this Biennial. It seemed that the galleries had quite a bit of sculpture, assemblage, film, and other objects that weren’t paintings.
Another thing I noticed rather quickly was that almost the entire museum-going population was women, mostly over age fifty. (This was in stark contrast to the MoMA design show, where there was quite a diversity of viewers, many under age 13!) I’m guessing this was due to the fact that it was a mid-day, members-only preview, so there wouldn’t be many tourists or 9-to-5′ers.
Finally, although this Biennial had quite a few video installations, it was much quieter and more subdued than I remember from the last two Biennials. No fluorescent rooms with flashing strobe lights; no loud, repetitive, driving sounds.
(Put these last two points together and you get a chance to hear everyone’s opinion, especially those of people who make it a point to shout their opinions to their friends across the room…)
On to the artwork… By far the piece that I enjoyed the most was Ellen Harvey‘s “Museum of Failure — Collection of Impossible Subjects & Invisible Self-Portrait in My Studio”. In a small gallery by itself, the viewer is first presented with a brushed shiny Plexiglas “mirror” that has been engraved with drawings of ornate picture frames. The wall is illuminated from the rear by fluorescent lights so that the engraved markings appear to light up. In place of one of the frames on this wall, though, is a space cut out so that you can see the wall behind. On that wall is a multi-panel painting that shows the same picture frames fully rendered in oil paint; filling those painted frames are paintings of mirrored reflections of components of the artist’s studio. I loved this piece because it gave you a lot to think about: figuring out what it was, how it worked, and how best to look at it. Also, the rear wall paintings are beautifully handled and would stand on their own aesthetically without the front mirror. Together, I found it conceptually interesting and exciting to look at.
The only other representational paintings that stick in my head are Robert Becthle’s near photo-realist California streetscapes whose sienna underpaintings glow through subsequent layers of paint and provide some texture to look at in otherwise smooth paintings.
Echoing the Color Chart show I saw earlier in the day at MoMA was Daniel Joseph Martinez‘s “Divine Violence.” The gallery is full of rectangular panels painted with “automotive goldflake” paint, each labeled in the middle with the name of an “organization around the world attempting to affect politics through violent means.” Obvious choices like Hamas or Al Qaeda are present, but also included are “Central Intelligence Agency”, giving the piece a different kind of slant.
A few graphic works were of note: Matthew Brannon filled a small gallery with letterpress graphic images whose textual elements contain puzzling or pithy or poetic or humorous contrasts with the imagery. Seth Price had three well-composed graphic “Gold Key” panels (though his other piece, “Untitled”, which looks something like a disconnected map of the US with Texas dangling off, wasn’t as catchy).
Adam Putnam‘s green hallway was beautiful and interestingly constructed. The viewer enters a small, darkened room. In the middle is a platform upon which a small glass & mirror sculpture rests. Dangling from the ceiling is a cord that holds a single light bulb right in the middle of the sculpture. The light is bounced around and cast against the dim gallery walls and the cast, colored shadows on the walls look like spooky three dimensional hallways.
Finally, the most puzzling work in the show was Phoebe Washburn’s “Birth of a Soda Shop”, a large assembly of wood, pipes, tanks, golfballs, Gatorade, and flowers. Yes, it’s a rather unconventional choice of materials. In the piece, flower bulbs are growing in tanks whose “soil” is either orange or yellow golf balls and whose water appears to be orange or lemon Gatorade. If you walk behind the piece, you can examine the pump system and witness a few more tanks of flower bulbs. I really don’t know what to make of it, other than it caused much head scratching, though it did at least hold my attention for several minutes as I tried to figure it all out.
Much of the work in this Biennial doesn’t quite stand on its own. That is, without some additional explanation about the artist’s intentions or background, it’s difficult to know how to interpret the work. Very little in the show catches the eye at a purely aesthetic level, and with only a few exceptions I don’t recall there being a lot of color anywhere. But being the Whitney Biennial, it’s still worth seeing, even if it doesn’t get your creative juices flowing like some of the past Biennials.
