I just got an email from the Walker saying that the curators of the Whitney Biennial are going to be here next Monday (April 3) to “address some of the published criticism of their exhibition.” They must be some really brave folks, since the reviews I have read are pretty harsh about the whole thing. The LA times called it “dull and insignificant,” and Michael Kimmelman from the NY Times used terms like “messy, half-baked.” Ouch. Then again, other people loved it. I haven’t been to NY to see for myself…. has anyone else? I’m curious to see how Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne handle this…
Anyone seen the Whitney Biennial?
Mar 29 2006 — 2:00am
9 Reader Comments
12:21 pm
Harshing on the Whitney Biennial… that’s practically where hatah-cultcha was invented.
1:26 pm
The Walker blog post on this event includes two comments by DC-based critic Tyler Green (who calls the biennial “an awesomely bad exhibition… the worst contemporary group show I’ve seen in a major museum since…2003″) pointing out a few more poor reviews.
1:45 pm
Some of the best reviews of the show have been for its awesomely huge catalog, which, by the way, was printed in Minneapolis.
2:52 pm
And it (the catalogue) was designed by a former Walker designer, Conny Purtill.
3:38 pm
I like that if you search for Whitney Biennial the third link down is
http://www.whitneybiennial.org/
A link to thier sponser…Altria!
And not in a good way!
6:27 pm
Go Conny!
10:35 pm
Here’s a potential question: did you really both forget the name of biennial artist Jesus Negron in front of him?
http://artfagcity.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-to-tank-your-curatorial-reputation.html
7:45 am
It’s so easy to bash biennials (hell, there are, like, 250 of them worldwide) and it can’t be that easy to curate them. I haven’t seen this one, so maybe it is awful, but it’s pretty cool that Minneapolis can claim one of its curators as its own. Great job, Philippe.
12:35 am
I haven’t listened to it yet, but here’s the audio from this event.