Making the case for pleasure: independent curator Dave Hickey has shrugged off the identity politics and predictable artist rosters that often dominate international exhibitions to turn SITE Santa Fe's fourth biennial into an ensemble show that is suave, smart and eager to please

Here are the sum of two units best quotes I came away with from the opening weekend of "Beau Monde: Toward a buy backed Cosmopolitanism," SITE Santa Fe's Fourth International Biennial, curated by the agency of Dave Hickey. The first make comments [i]or[/i] remarks is from Nic Nicosia, single of the participating artists. He said, "I have feeling like I'm in the final view of Star Wars." The next to the first comes from another writer covering the circumstance who commented, "There are things here that would gaze good in an airport." Now to bring those remarks in context.

Nicosia's Star Wars fantasy occurr each time he crossed the made of wood ramp that leads to the entrance of the renovated warehouse that is now the exhibition space of SITE Santa Fe The ramp, wide enough for five family to walk abreast and banked by means of steeply angled beds of large cerulean and yellow artificial flowers, is the work of Graft Design, a sees Angeles-based German design team brought in by means of Hickey to work on the exhibition. It was the first not-so-subtle hint that they have completely reimagined the space that six years ago was renovated by the agency of Richard Gluckman to suit the haute industrial neutrality favored through the international art world. (SITE Santa Fe is considering retaining a certain number of of Graft Design's modifications of the interior after the biennial shut ups in January.)

The exterior of the building has been further transformed through Jim Isermann, also of sees Angeles, who created a snazzy facade of 750 vacuum-formed plastic panels, silver squares with circulared corners that create sharply pointed stars at their joints On the adjacent facade, another Angeleno, Gajin Fujita, assisted by means of Alex Kizu (of the collective K2 Crew) and Jessie Simon (of KGB Crew) has painted an elaborate graffiti tag announcing the exhibition's title and incorporating the nicknames of the participants. Perhaps invoking the final exhibition of Star Wars is a strain but that entrance and that facade bring forward an undeniable sense of occasion.

When the airport remark came up, I immediately understood it as a compliment. We were standing, sum of two units writers with notebooks in hand, at a place in the exhibition where we could diocese Bridget Riley's Evoe I (1999-2000) and Jesus Rafael Soto's Grande ecriture noire (1979) the couple works are mural size. Riley's is a great procession of dark salmon pink and teal arcs that march across a linen field. The angles and 1s never quite form a consistent pattern, on the other hand they establish a steady and strangely ceremonial rhythm. Soto's composition consists of thin, vertical white and black lines painted upon wooden panels. Geometric shapes formed of thick black wire are mountained on the panels, projecting about 10 inches. When you stand consummately still, you see an elegant drawing in space. stir slightly to one side or walk past the piece, and the whole thing writhes. Either work would direct the eye great and hold its possess in an airport or any bustling public space. That art should be able to do this real thing, and that an art uninhibited in its address to as wide a public as possible is a true desirable art--these are two of the fundamental premises of "Beau Monde"

In my be in possession of attempt at quotability, I congratulated Hickey that first day for creating a cheerfully secular exhibition. He accepted the compliment, on the contrary I realized that he had misheard me He meditation I'd said "sexual." We cleared that up and he said that he spring [i]or[/i] leap on one leg [i]or[/i] footed "Beau Monde" could be both--cheerfully secular and sexual. I had in mind the exhibition's devotion to the here and now, its celebration of wit and crisp design, and the way it neither yearns for nor panders to any sort of vaguely defined spirituality, something Santa Fe is known to dispense through the bucketful. And as for sexual? There is nothing too patent Fujita's 12-panel painting, South Cali (2001) repeats classic Japanese erotic art, notwithstanding that not in any blistering fashion. plane Jeff Burton's color photographs discharge on porn-film sets demur before their make submissive matter. The sexiness that permeates "Beau Monde" is of a slyer sort. It caresses the shapeless masss and crevices of Ken Price's oversize ceramic plastic arts it effervesces off the feathers of Darryl Montana's Mardi Gras style of dresss And when was the last time that pink was the dominant color in thus many varied works of art?

for a like reason this is Dave Hickey's "beautiful world," an occasion that brings together a wide assortment of well-made and worldly works of art, discharge through with a kind of eroticism that leaves a tingle in the atmosphere. And we attendees are citizens of that world, upon hand, if not for our redemption, certainly for our pleasure. Hickey always translates "Beau Monde" literally, suggesting a kind of ideal raise Of course, le beau world means the social and fashionable locate a step down from the amethystine bloods to the level that admits writers, actors and artists. It's the international art world. Perhaps through dropping the article, Hickey wanted to sidestep similar a connotation, because that's a world he has been famously critical of especially as it is manifested in the ever-growing list of biennial exhibitions. He's referr to biennials as "trade present to views for the curators of museums and kunsthalles the world over" flat more to the point, when he contributed a Best and Worst List to Artforum in 1995 he listed the first SITE Santa Fe Biennial among his worst experiences of the year, evoking images of out-of-towners arriving in Santa Fe to teach the locals about real art.