More thoughts on the biennial, comparing it to last year's biennial:
The 2004 biennial was really pretty and stupid and vapid and consensus-building and left me feeling really cold because the world was too fucked up for art this beautiful.
Okay, so this year the biennial is ugly and the splash screen for the biennial's web page says that the whitney believes that together we can defeat bush. A direct response, and Iles was part of the team curating last year. Step in the right direction? And what on earth do spraypainted silver sticks swinging wax have to do with defeating Bush? Why did Iles set it up so that resistance is the theme, really (day into night my left eye), and in so doing set younger artists up to fail and look stupid?
Does she really do this, or were the galleries too full for me to really see what was going on? Disclaimer: the place was mobbed, and I do intend to see the show again when it's not a madhouse.
And what about beauty? Is the world too fucked up for art to be beautiful at all? Is the only response to an ugly time ugly art?
Because I think that times are so terrible that the only helpful response is extremely beautiful art that confronts what is actually happening. I see a massive turning away, and why not? If any artist can make the world something to look at again, isn't that useful? Isn't that the first step to actually helping?
Or is it ridiculous dreaming to assume that art means anything to the larger culture anymore? Kimmelman in today's paper talked about the biennial in terms of art's neutered status. He called art a barnacle clinging to the ship of popular culture. He's right.
The 2004 biennial was really pretty and stupid and vapid and consensus-building and left me feeling really cold because the world was too fucked up for art this beautiful.
Okay, so this year the biennial is ugly and the splash screen for the biennial's web page says that the whitney believes that together we can defeat bush. A direct response, and Iles was part of the team curating last year. Step in the right direction? And what on earth do spraypainted silver sticks swinging wax have to do with defeating Bush? Why did Iles set it up so that resistance is the theme, really (day into night my left eye), and in so doing set younger artists up to fail and look stupid?
Does she really do this, or were the galleries too full for me to really see what was going on? Disclaimer: the place was mobbed, and I do intend to see the show again when it's not a madhouse.
And what about beauty? Is the world too fucked up for art to be beautiful at all? Is the only response to an ugly time ugly art?
Because I think that times are so terrible that the only helpful response is extremely beautiful art that confronts what is actually happening. I see a massive turning away, and why not? If any artist can make the world something to look at again, isn't that useful? Isn't that the first step to actually helping?
Or is it ridiculous dreaming to assume that art means anything to the larger culture anymore? Kimmelman in today's paper talked about the biennial in terms of art's neutered status. He called art a barnacle clinging to the ship of popular culture. He's right.
posted by fisher6000 at 8:00 AM
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