Whitney 2004 Biennial Show

Posted to www.marxmail.org on May 28, 2004

The line in front of the Whitney Museum snaked around the corner. When I finally made my way through the front door, it was hard for me to figure out whether this was the result of a largely black and American-flag pin festooned security guard contingent checking each handbag, knapsack, etc., or larger than normal crowds attracted to the much hyped Biennial show. When I asked one of the guards whether his flag was meant to indicate support for the war in Iraq, he looked perplexed for a second and then explained that it was "because of September 11th." In other words, he confirmed my suspicions. I wondered how long those pins would stay on if they knew that it cost each and every one of them $4,000 to keep the war going (a statistic courtesy of Doug Henwood.)

The Biennial shows are famous (or infamous depending on your viewpoint) for mixing postmodernist inspired radical politics with sexual outrageousness. They have generated controversies such as the one over Hans Haacke's "Sanitation" from the 2000 show, which compared Mayor Giuliani to Hitler. It upset Marylou Whitney, the daughter-in-law of Whitney founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, so much that she decided to no longer donate to the museum. Haacke's installation piece was quintessential Biennial stuff, consisting "of a wall lined with garbage cans, each containing a speaker playing audio of marching troops. A gold-framed reproduction of the First Amendment would be on the wall, along with six quotations--three from the mayor--written in the Gothic typescript favored by Adolf Hitler." (Washington Post, March 19, 2000)

As I worked my way down from the top floor, I had the distinct impression that most of the artists were driven by the same kind of market imperatives as the rest of bourgeois society. The need to "make something new" is as intrinsic to the art market as it is to the world of soft drinks or automobiles. In the case of the Biennial, it is essential to figure out how to be politically or sexually "transgressive" but without doing so in a way that has been done before. Whether it is breakfast cereals or sculpture, this is a tall order.

There were large-scale installation pieces that juxtaposed everyday objects into jarring combinations that forced the viewer to ask "what is that supposed to mean?" In essence, these works take the innovations of Joseph Cornell and turn them into oversized clichés. There were also countless abstract or minimalist paintings and sculptures that were interesting to look at but for no longer than 2 minutes or so. When I ran into a group tour on the 3rd floor, which I accompanied for about 15 minutes, I saw another important group of works that helped to define the exhibition to the mainstream world. The tour guide was explaining the intentions of Robert Longo, whose large-scale oil paintings were some kind of humanist response to 9/11, especially his "Hell's Gate", which appeared to my untutored eye as just a picture of a wave in the ocean.

After explaining that Longo, like many of the artists at the show, were trying to keep alive the radical spirit of the 1960s and 70s, she walked the group into the next gallery where they saw paintings of anti-nuclear protestors in Great Britain. These images were meant to remind us that the radical movement never disappeared. I nearly opened my mouth to say that I am reminded of that every day when I wake up, but I thought better of it.

What was in short supply at the show was anything that was beautiful. For that you have to go to museums where the works come out of a kind of organic connection between the creator and the society he or she lives in. In such societies, the artist was considered more of a servant or a craftsperson than a prophet/genius and was expected to reinforce the dominant values of society. They either painted nativity scenes or teepees. In any case, their work was never intended as market ploys to 'epater le bourgeoisie'.

All of NYC's museums are driven by marketing agendas right now. The Whitney's niche is to come up with something shocking and new, while the Guggenheim, its neighbor 15 blocks north, often seems happy to simply display the same commodities that are on sale in various boutiques, from BMW motorcycles to Armani suits. The Museum of Modern Art and the Met play the same game, but are less vulgar about it.

All of them were totally dependent on the largesse of robber barons to get started. The MOMA was the godchild of the Rockefeller family, while the Whitney was launched directly by the granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gertrude Whitney Vanderbilt, a would-be artist who started the original museum in 1931 after divorcing her playboy husband Harry Payne Whitney. It is of course ironic that the Whitney, for all its radical pretensions, would not exist without the super-exploitation of Irish and Chinese rail workers.

Images from and commentary on the Biennial show can be seen at: http://www.whitney.org/biennial/. It might not be obvious due to the dark text set against a dark background, but you can click "pop large" or "pop small" at the bottom of the page, which will initiate a slide show.