The Whitney Biennial
By Matthew Friday
The Whitney Biennial used to be considered one of the best collections of contemporary
art. As an index avant-garde work, previous Biennials have consequently created
an extensive amount of controversy. The Biennial 2000 fails to accomplish either
of these goals, and because of these failures it is one of the most interesting
shows this year.
Art's tendency to be perceived as simple self-expression is all too well known,
at the same time it is a mistake to read visual culture as simply an index of
social formations. "Like artist's lives," Theodore Adorno wrote in
an essay on Proust, "their works appear 'free' only when seen from the
outside. The work is neither a reflection of the soul nor the embodiment of
a Platonic Idea. It is not pure Being, but rather a 'force field' between subject
and object." 1 As a negotiation between subjective creativity and objectification
the artist must rely upon certain pre-existing signifying structures. Like ripples
on the surface of a pond, they can either indicate movement in the depths or
serve to draw something to the surface in search of sustenance.
As Katy Siegel points out in her article in Artforum 2 , there may be no overarching
structure to this show, it is a mistake to conceive of it as only random pluralism.
It is a credit to the artists that they are able to manifest several overlapping
narratives with subtlety and grace. This having been said there is a notable
shift away from the mode of institutional critique that has been in vogue for
the past decade. Aside from Hans Haacke's notorious Sanitation , a work that
addresses Ruddy Giuliani's attempted censorship of the Brooklyn Museum Sensation
show, there is little work which takes an overt oppositional stance. Rather
than mistake this move as a return to the "good old" values of art
for art's sake it is perhaps more productive to view this change as a reflection
of the increasing complexity of the social sphere. Social commentary is best
swallowed with a wry taste of irony rather than the dry flavor of didacticism.
As much as I despise when critics, historians and artists ramble on about the
merits of an increased integration between the arts and technology, I am forced
to acknowledge that the Biennial does showcase some engaging examples of tech-art.
One could site this year as the first year in which "net art" makes
its appearance. Cyberspace has become a focal point for artistic research and
innovation. The Biennial provides a dedicated internet viewing room in which
the various sites can be experienced first hand. Much of what has been written
about the fusion of technology and art lacks any critical distance and seems
to repeat the tired phrasing of a corporate advertisement: global village, interactive
community, and immersive environment. The net-art of the Biennial stands in
blatant contrast to these positivistic claims. ®Tm Mark is perhaps the best
example of innovative internet content. ®Tm Mark ( rtmark.com ) began in
1991 as a form of corporate subversion. Among their many ingenious projects
are the creation of parody websites for such respectable figures as George Bush
( gwbush.com ) and Rudolph Giuliani (yesrudy.com). These sites along with ®tm
Mark's 40 minute long corporate video Bringing It to YOU, serve as an excellent
example of art which is critical of its own medium. As artists are continually
called upon to utilize more and more technology to reach a broader viewing audience,
they are forced into cohabitation with the same corporate forces that create
and control this technology. Artist such as Mark Amerika ( www.grammatron.com
), Lee Baldwin ( www.redsmoke.com) , and Fakeshop ( www.fakeshop.com ) explore
the non-linear narrative structures made possible by the use of hypertext. Combining
multi-media technologies and unpredictable interfaces the shifting surfaces
of their websites reflect the topography of
cyberspace itself.
In the overly cited text "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction",
Walter Benjamin compares the mediums of painting and film. "Magician and
surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work
a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web.
There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the
painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments
which are assembled under a new law." 3 Benjamin argues that painting presents
itself as a semiotic totality filtered through the subjective, whereas film
captures the ephemeral moment. One could easily argue that Warhol's paintings
and the immersive narratives of contemporary Hollywood productions do just the
opposite. It is however notable that Benjamin's predictions concerning the nature
of film do hold true in light of its ascendance as a visual art form. his is
perhaps no where as evident than in this year's Biennial. Doug Aitken's mesmerizing
Electric Earth , exists as a series of vestibules on whose walls dance enigmatic
images of downtown Los Angeles. A young man wanders the streets speaking cryptic
phrases such as, "Sometimes I move so fast I become what surrounds me."
His directionless wanderings through the urban landscape become a contemplation
of ruin and entropy. Aitken combines the sensual bass gropings of ambient techno
with a visual sophistication rarely seen on MTV. It comes as no surprise that
he has directed a number of music videos and it is a pleasure to see him leave
behind the familiar restrictions of that media. In a similar way Harmony Korine's
film Gummo , shown on a rotating basis at the Biennial, serves to transcend
the codes of studio films. Gummo most closely satisfies Benjamin's claims that,
"The progressive reaction (of film) is characterized by the direct, intimate
fusion of visual and emotional enjoyment with the orientation of the expert.
Such fusion is of great social significance." 4 Rather than the uncritical
enjoyment of the standard Hollywood production, Korine forces the viewer the
engage the film on several levels. Though Gummo navigates the landscape of working
class America, it fails to fall prey to sentimentality. Gummo is what you might
get if Dostoyevsky wrote a Roseanne episode that was then directed by Jean-Luc
Godard. The fact that it is both intimately pleasurable upon viewing and truly
disturbing is of great social significance.
Endnotes:
• Adorno, Theodore. "The George-Hofmannsthal Correspondence 1891-1906"
Prisms, trans. Samuel and Sherry Webber. (London 1967), p.184
• Siegel, Katy. "Whitney Biennial" Artforum. May 2000, p. 171
• Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Illuminations . Ed. Hannah Arendt, p. 233.
• Ibid. p. 234.
