Whitney Review

Whitney Biennial 2010 Review

Jaeman Shin

 

From hearing negative review after negative review from people who have gone to the Whitney Biennial, I had to work very hard not to walk through the exhibition with a biased mind. Also, the incredibly strict “guards” at the Whitney did not help to make the viewing experience pleasant.  Looking at the Whitney Biennial as a whole, I don’t really see any theme or clear connection between the artworks. If I had to pick a theme that may fit these works, it would probably be “un-monumental” like the book I am reading for professor Bradford’s sculpture course. But there are definitely quite a few artworks that don’t really fit into the “un-monumental” theme. Many if not all of the sculptural and installation works were un-monumental yet, photographic works like the Burnt Afghan Women and many of the video arts do not seem to work with that theme.  There is also a political theme of America and it’s current state, like the ambulance We like America and America likes us or the president Obama newspaper couch by Jessica Jackson Hutchins. Nina Berman’s photo series of former marine Ty Ziegel are powerful and successful examples of this theme. If there were just a few more politically inspired artworks in the show, the theme could be America, but this theme is distracted by pockets of un-monumental or abstract-expressionist type artworks.

                One of my favorite from this exhibition was Kerry Tribe’s video projection H.M. The documentary style dual projection was about an old man who lost his short-term memory when he was in his forties. I believe he was an epilepsy patient who had an experimental brain surgery which resulted in him losing his short term memory because of the doctor’s mistake. If I remember correctly, while filming this old man, Kerry Tribe realizes that her neighbor was the doctor who performed the surgery on the man she was filming. There were many video works in this exhibition, most of them were dance choreography and home video style artworks which I couldn’t really understand or appreciate.

                In the photographic art area, two artworks stand out from the rest in my mind. Nina Berman’s marine photos and Stephanie Sinclair’s Afghan women. While both work deals with tragedy and renewal / recovery, I found Nina Berman’s photographs more successful because Stephanie Sinclair’s burn victims felt too graphic for unnecessary reasons and comes off as going for the shock value. This negative response to Stephanie Sinclair’s work may also have something to do with the installation artwork strange attractors that I had to walk through right before viewing Sinclair’s work. I think if there is an art work dealing with darker and serious subject matters, they should be presented in a well thought out point in the viewer’s flow through the exhibition. The strange attractors was a weird and funny looking installation with handheld video cameras in stockings hanging from the ceiling. I do not have a clue on what the installation is about but I don’t think it is the appropriate artwork to be right next to Sinclair’s photographs.

                I felt many of the sculptural works were of poor craftsmanship and weak at both conceptual and aesthetic levels. Theaster Gates installation sculptures on the bottom floor was probably the best sculptural work in the show. The wine rack looking metal sculpture on the second or third floor was one of the worst welding job that I have seen, and the two two-by-fours screwed together sitting on a pedestal was too much in my opinion and it makes me feel slightly sick to think about what the artist would have had to make up for in words to get that artwork into a show of this caliber.

                Although it was refreshing in a way to see new works from many artists that I have never heard of, the feel like the overall show was unsuccessful. There were some good artworks in the exhibition yet many if not most of the artworks were mediocre at best. After thinking through the exhibition once again while writing this review, I still think the theme is either America or un-monumental art. But, it feels like the theme that fits this biennial the best would be “randomness”