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Whitney Biennial 2010: News + Views

Whitney Museum founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

via Lindsay Pollack - art market views:

Whitney Releases 2010 Biennial Picks

Curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari have announced the list of  artists for the 2010 Whitney Biennial.  The 75th edition runs Feb. 25-May 30. Eleven of the 55 artists have appeared in previous biennials. (Watch a video of the curators reading the list of artists here).

THE LIST

via NYMag's VULTURE:

Saltz on Art’s Triumph: Women Win Slim Majority in Next Whitney Biennial

12/11/09 at 2:28 PM

An art-world wall has fallen. The list of the 55 artists to be included in the 2010 Whitney Biennial was made public this morning, and 52 percent of those artists are women. Depending on where you stand, hell has frozen over, or there’s a fissure in the force. (The 2000 Biennial was made up of 36 percent women; in 2008, it was 40 percent.) When I asked curator Francesco Bonami about the unusually high percentage of women artists in his show, he said that he and associate curator, Gary Carrion-Murayari, “didn’t look for women artists. They were just in front of our eyes. It wasn’t conscious at all.” He added that it was “misleading” to think about the upcoming Biennial “in these terms.”

Perhaps. Still, the show will include excellent, newer, below-the-radar artists like performance chaos-creator Aki Sasamoto; Jessica Jackson Hutchins, whose arrangements of objects and ceramics create contradictory cosmic and formal storms; Kate Gilmore, who has been known to smash through Sheetrock walls while wearing party dresses and high heels; and Sharon Hayes, whose 2008 performance of her reading an imaginary letter about love and war on a midtown corner at lunch hour was one of the most moving things I saw that year. Also on hand will be powerful under-knowns Babette Mangolte, Dawn Clements, Suzan Frecon, and Lorraine O’Grady, who has invaded art openings dressed in various guises, addressing issues of race and class.

The inclusion of all the women artists in this cattle call does not mean that the upcoming Biennial will be much better or worse than usual. Art exhibitions should never be about quotas. Still, in all likelihood, Bonami’s 2010 Biennial will prove once and for all that women artists are no better and no worse than their male counterparts. Once this is acknowledged, we’ll be able to get on with the business-as-usual of tearing the Whitney Biennial to shreds. Or not.

via Two Coats of paint:

Thursday, December 10, 2009

18 painters selected for 2010 Whitney Biennial

According to Carol Vogel in the NY Times, the 2010 edition of the Whitney Biennial will not only try to chronicle current goings-on in contemporary art, but it will also reflect the world at large. "In these recessionary times, the show will be smaller than it has been in recent years, with just 55 artists, down from 81 in 2008 and 100 in 2006. It will also be contained in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s home, the Marcel Breuer building, rather than spilling over into a second location, as the 2008 Biennial did when it occupied much of the Park Avenue Armory or into Central Park as other Biennials have.

"Next year’s event, which runs from Feb. 25 through May 30, is being organized by Francesco Bonami, 54, the Italian-born curator who helped put together the Rudolph Stingel retrospective at the Whitney in 2007, and Gary Carrion-Murayari, 29, a senior curatorial assistant at the museum who helped with the Biennials in 2004 and 2006."

The eighteen painters include: [LINK]

Cherry Picker at the Whitney from joy garnett on Vimeo.

Cherry Picker at the Whitney, cont'd from joy garnett on Vimeo.

Katie Holten's Tree Museum, on Art:21

LEFT: "Tree Museum," tree #6, outside the post office at 149th Street, 2008. RIGHT: Katie Holten, "Grand Concourse Street Tree at 149th Street," ink on paper, 30 x 22 inches, 2008.

via Art:21...

Tree Museum

December 10th, 2009

by Katie Holten

We invited artist Katie Holten to write about her current project, Tree Museum, a public artwork in the Bronx, New York.  — Ed.

I think it’s fair to say that Tree Museum is unlike most other recent public art projects in New York City. The scale of the project is huge and at ten miles in length, rivals that of recent blockbusters such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates (Central Park, 2005), Olafur Eliasson’s The New York City Waterfalls (NYC waterfronts, produced by the Public Art Fund, 2008) and PLOT: This World and Nearer Ones (Governor’s Island, produced by CREATIVE TIME, 2009). But the comparison ends there. In all other regards, the Tree Museum is a different species.

Almost invisible, the Tree Museum, which quietly opened on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx in June, makes the hidden elements of the street visible. At the root of my practice is an understanding that nature is not somewhere else. Nature is not far away on an abandoned island or in a prairie; it is everything around us, including the unforgiving city streets and the inherently urban communities of the South Bronx. These very streets are natural and this environment – our sidewalk, our block, our apartment building, and of course our street tree — is our place in the city.

The Tree Museum invites pedestrians to experience the Bronx, and New York City, in unexpected ways. One hundred street trees, from 138th Street at the southern tip of the Grand Concourse to Mosholu Parkway at the northern tip, are the points of entry to this “museum-without-walls.”  The audio guide at the core of the Tree Museum links the natural and social ecosystems. The recorded voices and stories are used sculpturally to create an artwork whose roots reach down into the history of the place, while the branches spread out and offer insights into the resilient communities, fragile ecologies, and vibrant daily scenes to be found along the street...

[read on...]

more:

The Tree Museum audioguide is now available as a podcast -

http://apps.guidebycell.com/gbc/http/Podcast.jsp?phone=7184082501

Katie Holten interviewed by Ike Sriskandarajah for Public Radio International's Living on Earth show -

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00048&segmentID=5

Tree Museum runs through January 3, 2010

http://www.treemuseum.org

"L'Affaire Joannou": Art Critics Get Down!

Sharon Butler reports, while offering a thorough linky roundup of what Artnet has branded "L'Affaire Joannou".

 

via Two Coats of Paint, Tuesday, November 17, 2009:

Critic on critic: Jerry Saltz tells DC blogger to get a grip

In a Vulture post about the New Museum's questionable curatorial practices, Saltz assesses the quality of the vociferous debate and courageously suggests that prickly blogger Tyler Green's criticism has crossed the line. "One of the main things that suggested all this indignation had gone too far was the witch-hunt tone of an editorial in the November issue of  Art Newspaper. The language in the piece — written by art blogger Tyler Green and published at the end of last week — was scolding, scornful, condescending, and smug, tinged with a verbal violence that was a little scary. The editorial begins with the false charge that private collector exhibitions are 'fluff shows.' Green sniffs that he’s 'especially disappointed' in the New Museum, and finishes by beseeching all museums to 'cancel' exhibitions of private collections. He demands that the Association of Art Museum Directors “ban” these shows because they are 'an insult' to the art world. When I hear a word like 'ban,' I reach for my dictionary and review the definition of the word democracy.

"This kind of apparatchik rule-making feels off to me. Green has gotten into the habit of demanding that people be fired, reprimanded, or punished, as if only he knows right from wrong. He played a role in getting Grace Glueck fired from the Times for her 'conflict of interest.' After Village Voice art critic Christian Viveros-Faune talked about his dual roles as a critic and an employee of an art fair, Green accused him of indulging 'a textbook case of unethical conflict-of-interest' that struck 'at the very heart of ... integrity' and 'flouted journalistic norms.' Green sneered that he was 'troubled' by this behavior and publicly asked the Voice to 'stop publishing' Viveros-Faune. Guess what? That’s exactly what happened. The Voice and the art world lost a tremendous voice....

"I know it’s dangerous to take on bloggers. They can go after you every day, all day long, and anonymous people can chime in, too. Already this week Green has branded me an 'up-with-art cheerleader,' chortled 'balderdash' at something I wrote, and is now even writing comments on my Facebook page and publishing other of my Facebook comments on his public blog. Still, come what may, I’m tired of the hate fest."

In a conciliatory response, Green writes in the Comments thread (and on Saltz's Facebook wall): "I'm proud of the positions I've taken on a range of issues. It is true that I've taken assertive, principled positions on a range of issues. I'd be happy to engage in a dialogue on any of those positions. ...I don't hate you."

Update: On Jerry's Facebook page, Green says the debate isn't about him, it's about the New Museum. Nice guy Ed Winkleman has called for a public debate between Saltz and Green.

Related Links (via Art Observed):
Controversy over New Museum’s plans to show trustee’s collection [The Art Newspaper]
Turning a museum into a vanity space [Tyler Green for The Art Newspaper]
The New Museum responds [The Art Newspaper]
The NuMu ethics story hits the NYT’s front page [Modern Art Notes]
The Met’s director: We’re closer to NuMu than to MoMA [Modern Art Notes]
Saltz: Money, Insularity, and a Huge Controversy for the New Museum [New York Magazine]
Art Morality [New York Magazine]
Some Object as Museum Shows Its Trustee’s Art [NY Times]
The New Museum’s Web of Connections [NY Times]
Museum Directors on Collectors and Exhibitions [NY Times]
The New Museum’s Position on Its Show From a Trustee’s Collection
The Appendix: New Museum Scandal Edition [Artinfo]
NuMu Boo Boo [Time]
New Museum Brouhaha Goes Supernova [Artnet]
New Museum commits suicide with banality [James Wagner]
The November Brooklyn Rail Cover [William Powhida]
New Museum Controversy Grows with its Announced Plans to Show Trustee’s Art [Art Fag City]
Jeff Koons and The Perils of an Unregulated Art World [Art Fag City]
The New York Museum Director Witch Hunt Begins [Art Fag City]
The Authority of the New Museum [Art Market Monitor]

Upping the Socially Networked Museum: Whitney.org Redesign

"To the museum’s credit, the sensibility of openness that leads to the collection concept works on both sides of the site database – content is added and edited using a distributed, wiki-style content management system (CMS) unique to Linked by Air, the design firm responsible for the new Whitney site. [...That ] part of the goal of the new site [... is to allow] a broad range of museum employees to contribute directly to it assures currency, accuracy – and staff ownership."

Philip Bump offers some insight and analysis.

via MEDIAite:

The Whitney’s Re-Design: Web Done (Nearly) Right

by Philip Bump | 10:27 am, November 12th, 2009

» 1 comment

I don’t envy those who have to redesign the website for a museum – balancing institutional structure and needs with the requirement that it reflect the appropriate aesthetic. Moreover, the process of transitioning a sensibility to the web in itself requires decisions about what the organization represents – a staid, classical collection would justifiably be nervous about embracing an open engagement of the general public.

The Metropolitan Museum, for example, probably won’t be holding a contest on YouTube any time soon. Its website, which looks like it was created by a medium sized corporation in 2002, is staid, muted, and tucked behind a splash screen. The Museum of Modern Art’s website, by contrast, is, well, modern, with a palette and structure that would bore Mies van der Rohe. It’s the Obama of websites – so cool, it’s dull.

Late last night, the Whitney Museum of American Art, known for its modern and contemporary exhibitions and its Biennial, unveiled the latest example from this world. It’s a great improvement over what was there yesterday, though that’s a low hurdle to conquer. Yesterday, the site was a card catalog. Today, it’s a website.

What establishes the Whitney’s new site as a success is not the aesthetic revamping with which, frankly, I’m not impressed. Various elements are laid in a casual grid, anchored by the logo, nice and big, at the top. The navigation is awkward, with elements jumping to the head of the line to show additional options once clicked. The background is either black or white, in order to accommodate a conceptually interesting feature in which it changes when the sun in New York rises or sets. (That would be at 4:41 this afternoon or 6:40 tomorrow morning for those wanting to witness it.) As I said – conceptually interesting. In practice, though, it tends to make the site feel a bit flat, and perusing the collection is negatively impacted by the black background. (White borders would do wonders.)

That’s particularly a shame, because said perusal and its accompanying tools are the real hook to the site. The collection itself is easy to navigate and well indexed. Every page, one notices, has at the bottom a small dot which, when clicked, adds an item to your “custom collection” (assuming you take advantage of the free registration, which you ought to do). This is not unique – the afore-mentioned MoMA site has a similar function – but the Whitney takes it further. When, above, I said every page, I meant every page. In addition to works of art, you can add artists, site elements, upcoming exhibits, even the contact page. Collections are an opportunity to interact with more than the art – you can in essence create your own museum website.

[read full article]

KERPLOW! Powhida on Cover of Brooklyn Rail

via MAN:

Artist William Powhida on the NuMu's "suicide"

New York-based artist William Powhida, who frequently satirizes art world figures and conventions in his art, has taken on the New Museum's "suicide" in his latest work.

Excerpted above, Powhida's drawing details "How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality," and includes James Wagner, Lisa Phillips, Marcia Tucker, Jeff Koons, and plenty of others who are somehow engaged in the NuMu's self-injury. You can see the drawing here at Powhida's website (click on it for a high-res image). New Yorkers will see it on the cover of the next Brooklyn Rail.