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5.16.2004 posted by William 21:27 link |
I went back to the Whitney today to finish checking out the Biennial. I didn't have to wait long in line on the sidewalk to get in, but of course it was quite crowded inside. Enough to bother me a little, like when I would look at something up close it always felt like I was cutting someone's view off, or when I would back up to look at something from a distance the steady flow of people walking by obscured the work. I skipped a few video installations because there were crowds blocking the entrances.
I saw the fourth floor last week, and nothing I saw on the third or second floors this week really matched it, although there were still plenty of great pieces, like Zak Smith's Pictures of What Happens on Each Pagae of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow -- 755 striking post-card sized drawings that're probably even cooler if you've read the novel, instead of putting it on indefinite hold after tripping over the first twenty pages; Fred Tomaselli's thoughtful psychedelic paintings; James Siena's minimalist painting Double Recursive Combs; Golan Levin's The Secret Lives of Numbers -- an interactive computer piece with a beautiful interface that's fun to learn (whoever designed the Biennial website* could have learned a lot from this piece); Virgil Marti's Grow Room -- curiously named room of mirrors that somehow refrains from invoking a carnival funhouse. The Biennial runs for two more weeks. * That page directs you to click on a link to launch the Biennial website in a pop-up window. But if you go directly to the linked URL (www.whitneybiennial2004.org), you will see a short Flash movie that declares "whitneybiennial2004.org believes... TOGETHER WE CAN BEAT BUSH." Hey, sure, I believe it too, but it was kinda surprising to see it in big bold letters like that. Do museums normally take political positions? I'm pretty sure the Whitney is a private institution so there's nothing improper about doing so, but I can't ever remember seeing a nakedly partisan museum before. |