Performance of El Parque, Vidas Perfectas, Irondale Theater, Brooklyn, NY; December 2011. (Photographer Phillip Stearns)
The art circus is coming to town! In addition to this weekend's Armory Show, the sprawling 2014 Whitney Biennial is poised to open on Friday. The traditionally divisive exhibition purports to highlight the now and the next of American contemporary art, from painting to photography to performance, from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the well-known to the unknown. This year's show marks its last appearance Whitney's current Upper East Side home before its new building opens at the southern end of the High Line in 2015. We can only assume that the 2040 Biennial will be the last in Chelsea before they depart for Bushwick.
For the first time, the museum is dividing the show between its three floors, giving each to a different outside curator: MoMA's Stuart Comer, ICA Philadelphia curator Anthony Elms, and Chicago-based artist and professor Michelle Grabner. Each curator independently selected the artists that would show at the exhibit—the process felt, according to Comer, "a bit like a space expedition...distant satellites that come into the mother ship to touch base." He compared the exhibit's form to "a layer cake... it was clear all along that they wanted the three curators to do their own thing and be three distinct voices."
Relationship (Photo by Zackary Drucker/Courtesy of the artists and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles)
While it can be tempting to read the list of included artists and the artspeak curatorial statements—"conceptual practices oriented towards criticality"—as some sort of Definitive Statement about What Art Means Today, this year's exhibit seems much more focused on presenting diversity and difference (perhaps wise, given the controversies about cliquiness and corporatism that always accompany the show). "Given the sprawl, assembling an overview of American art these days is a fool's errand," said Elms, who instead is trying to present a vision of "constant expansion." Comer is focusing on what the idea of "American" art even means, while Grabner's floor will display painting by women and the emotions evoked by materials. All three curators say they want to present points of view not typically represented in New York.
Portrait of Jhon Balance as Talisman Against Suicide. (Elijah Burgher/Courtesy of the artist and Western Exhibitions, Chicago)
If this all sounds lofty and theoretical, know that almost a quarter of the artists are primarily known as painters; the curators intend to emphasize "the traditional disciplines of craft, painting, and sculpture." On the other hand, there are plenty of nominees in the category of that's visual art?, including the late novelist David Foster Wallace, Harvard University's entire Sensory Ethnography Lab, and L.A. publishing house Semiotext(e).
The exhibit opens to the public Friday at 1PM, and will run at the Whitney through the end of May. It includes several daily performances.
