Biennial

The Whitney Biennial is going on. I am always curious to see what the curators choose. There was a lot in the 2010 show that I really liked, and most of the pieces I enjoyed were by artists unfamiliar to me.

Kerry Tribe's film "H.M" is one of the best art films I've seen. It explores memory, veracity, and subjectivity. These are subjects I ponder, and what little reading I've done about philosophy of mind and cognitive science already introduced me to H.M. Tribe's treatment of the topic is multi-layered and ingenious.

I also really liked Lesley Vance's abstract oil paintings, Curtis Mann's distressed photos, Marianne Vitale's "Patron" video, and drawings by Roland Flexner, Storm Tharp, Aurel Schmidt, and Dawn Clements.

It struck me that much of the work that appealed to me was about salvaging and process. There were a lot of pieces of art that employed techniques dependent on chemical reactions and accident. Often accident-based processes are combined with highly controlled renderings in a piece.

Vance's paintings depend upon an old master palette. The source of her color choices was apparent immediately. She salvaged the somber spectrum of the late 1500s. Its impact surprised me. She does something completely removed from representational painting, but by resourcing those colors she creates a strong connection to that body of work.

Curtis Mann uses a type of masking (similar to tie-dye or batik) technique to highlight portions of photographs. The part he masks remains intact while the rest of the photograph is faded. The fading results in interesting patterns. He uses the masking to keep whole elements within a photo (such as a car) or to make a new mark (such as the partial outline of a person where no person appeared in the original photograph).

Roland Flexer manipulates a paper marbleizing technique to make sumi ink drawings. There is little traditional drawing in the process. He tilts, blots, or blows on the wet paper to move the ink. The result resembles a distressed, detailed drawing.

Storm Tharp also utilizes random patterns made by wet ink, but he embellishes this accidental foundation with carefully controlled, highly representational drawing. The contrast is striking.

Both Aurel Schmidt and Dawn Clements make large format, highly detailed drawings. Schmidt creates fantastic creatures composed of everyday materials such as hair, beer cans, cigarette stubs, and cob webs. Clements depicts domestic interiors that are pieced together from life or films. Her work resembles a map of a memory. The pages of drawings are fastened together in a quilt-like pattern in which pieces of the scene make almost a whole image.

Many artists make a habit of complaining about the Biennial. In some ways I feel like a Pollyanna admitting that I really enjoyed this one. I wasn't enthusiastic about everything in the exhibit, but I don't expect to like everything in the show. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the large-format floral ink drawings featured in one room were by an artist I have not admired in the past: Charles Ray.

The show introduced a lot of good art to me, and that is its purpose. Well done.