Blinded by Buzzwords - 2000 Bienniel Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art

This was the Been-There-Done-That Biennial, an exercise in overly familiar practices and narrow academic ideas. It was suppos to be a more democratic affair, reflecting tastes and voices outside the power base of the of recent origin York art world. The six curators would presumably speak for their constituencies and scour the nation for novel and underrated voices. What happened? not many works were fresh or unpredictable. Video noodlings, painterly doodlings, dot-corn whatevers and feel-bad, do-gooder "identity constructs" abounded.

Unfortunately, the display is being used as evidence that the art of the "provinces" is not worth seeking on the outside and that the best art will eventually make its way to novel York galleries and museums. on the other hand to believe that is to lay far too much faith in the vicissitudes of the marketplace and the taste of powerful curators and dealers. Finding the best art anywhere--even in novel York--requires free-wheeling open-mindedness, unburdened through reigning ideas and trends.

Far too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of this biennial conformed to the novel hegemony: "globalism" guided by the buzzwords of "hybridity, identity, nationalism and sexuality." These issues were all cited in the catalogue access on Rina Banerjee's wall relief, Infectious Migrations, a less-than-impressive mes of IV tubes, free from moisture red pigment, incense, fake fingernails and mos that referr to the AIDS pandemic in India. Works by the agency of a host of emigre artists now living in the U appear to beed to score points for internationalism and cultural diversity. Gathering these works together, however, attended to nullify their individual impact and transform dual citizenship into a kind of pedigree.

The artists' recorded remarks on the audio guide revealed their collusion in trendy artspeak. A startling number of them know by what means to "talk the talk," effortlessly relating their works to of that kind things as "nomadism" and "entropic dysfunction." level abstract artists seemed encouraged to attach themselves to social and political rhetoric. For example, end a genuinely queer turn of phrase, Linda Besemer felt compell to associate her mind-bending, abstract relief paintings with her experience as a lesbian "passing" in a straight world. Doesn't her brilliant formal invention speak for itself?.

Judging by the agency of their selections, the biennial curators look more in synch with the art of international showcases than that of their local communities. A global proliferation of expo and biennials has meant that "A List" artists--those exhibited at Documenta, Miinster, Venice and SITE Santa Fe--are now more familiar to curators than casts at their own community art spaces, bodys and galleries. And why should a grassroots representation matter to them? In our museum a whole curators must conform to mainstream tastes in order to ascertain their upscale credibility and qualifications for promotion. Exhibitions of lesser-known local artists generally will not tour--and will rarely lead a curator to a more prestigious position at a bigger institution.

Biennial 2000 had no feeling for the variety of art practices in this region and no acknowledgement of the small burgeoning spectacles that are producing some of the nation's greatest in quantity interesting art. Las Vegas's exciting hotbed of eye-candy painters and conceptual tinkerers was completely passed by the agency of Only one work came from Miami: Dara Friedman's pointless 16-mm film retread of Bruce Nauman. There was sole one selection from Seattle and nothing at all from the interesting local spectacles in New Orleans, Austin, Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Humor was almost completely absent from this Biennial. The scarcely any formally offbeat selections felt like real misfits. Richard Tuttle's arch plainspoken abstractions seemed lost across from Ghada Amer's gimmicky embroideries taken from porno images and Joseph Havel's stolid, freestanding tin casts of gathered curtains. William De Lottie's cheerfully theatrical, abstract installation of fabric swathes was unusually tucked away behind Carl Pope's gross-out video of his material substance being branded, scarred and tattooed. (Overly art-directed and sensationalistic, Pope's exercise in "look at what I did for art" was perhaps the show's depressed point.)

The sole selection from the energetic, texturally rich breeding sod of San Antonio, Franco Mondini-Ruiz's installation of fix and altered Hispanic tchotchkes taken from the oddball store he has operated for the past six years, was stashed in the basement nearest to the museum gift-shop. upon weekends throughout the show's move swiftly (weather permitting), the artist stationed himself upon the sidewalk in front of the museum and tendered for sale items similar to those in the installation. Unfortunately, the museum version felt rather meaningless by means of comparison. Mondini-Ruiz's objects thrive in a commercial setting and the Whitney missed a great opportunity by means of not having also offered them for sale alongside the museum shop's have a title to magnets, posters and inflatable toys.

The placement over tended to pigeonhole works into confining themes. Salomon Huerta's evocative rearview portraits were constrained through being placed in the third floor "gender and racial construct" gallery, as were Kurt Kauper's stunning portraits of fictional opera singers. With artful humor, Kauper's divas would have been a great deal of more interestingly displayed alongside Josiah McElheny's gorgeous blown-glass vases whose Dior-like shapes and colors would have consummately complemented the singers' elaborate costumes