The first thing you need to know about the Whitney Biennial is that it doesn’t mean anything. Sure, it provides a window, albeit a highly selective one, into that confusing subset of culture known as “the art world.” As such, its interest is primarily sociological. The Whitney may tout its “signature exhibition” as a “site of contention, conversation and debate,” but it’s less about “rewrit[ing] standard narratives” than a confirmation of establishment taste. If you’re curious about some of the ideas filtering through contemporary artistic thought—about “contradictory layers of synthetic nothingness,” “widespread opposition to top down systems of rigid authority,” and, er, “looping ropes and threads of rancid oily cum”—the Biennial is the place to go.
If that isn’t sufficiently diverting, you can ponder whether the curators have fulfilled the requisite quotas, ideologies, and agendas, not least if the recently minted mfa favored by this-or-that board member has been given the appropriate amount of floor space to improve the work’s market value. You can wonder, too, if the art of painting has forever been consigned to the margins—the examples at the Biennial being few, far between, and marred by gimmicky installation. As for the artists involved: each gets an impressive line on their resumé that may translate, at least temporarily, into some kind of fame. The Biennial will tell you a lot about the circus surrounding the scene, but as an indicator of art’s continuing vitality? The Biennial doesn’t mean anything.
The 2012 edition is particularly anemic.
