Whitney Biennial: What is American art?
March 11, 2014, Author Jason Farago writes about the Whitney Museum of American Art's 77th Biennial in Greenwich, England. The museum, known for exhibiting living American artists, was founded to showcase primarily the New York art scene in 1932. The previous biennials have included Jackson Pollock in 1946, challenging works from the vanguard of minimalism and conceptualism in the 60's, and the 1993 biennial showed politically themed art referencing the US's problems with race, class, gender, sexuality, the AIDS crisis, imperialism and poverty occurring during the rise of the Clinton Administration. This year, they are showcasing three artists from the US: Sheila Hicks, Susan Howe, and Bjarne Melgaard. During the show's multiple opening receptions, critics reviewed it as “deeply dissatisfying,” “generic, noncommittal, straitlaced,” “damningly mum about politics,” and “overly neat and likeable, scarcely messy or funny or challenging.”
With this being said, Jason Farago asks the question: What is contemporary art in the United States now?
While reading this article, I thought back to the exercise we did in class in which we had to think of American landmarks, cultures, and heritage for UNESCO to preserve, and how each group had different ideas of what is American. It is really hard to point out what america's culture is, as we are a massive conglomerate of immigrant cultures, and this could be a reason why there isn't an advancement or development stylistically toward American contemporary art.
For more information on the Whitney Museum of American Art's 77th biennial, click here.
I agree with Kat. America, being the beautiful eclectic mix of culture and personality that it is, there is no way to define exactly what is contemporary art this day in age. Personally, this pleases me because it shows how so diverse we are. Negative or positive comments show that the works are making viewers and critics think critically. However, If I had to define contemporary art today it would be like they mentioned in the article - our ability to make art readily available through different outlets including shows and technology. American art encompasses just that. Although we can not entirely define what American art is anymore, I think we all know what it is..."admirably diverse, beautiful and ugly at once, and very confused about the future."
ReplyDelete"American Art" seems to be an incredibly vague term - and getting more vague all the time. America is a melting pot of cultures and ethnesticities from all over the world. If the Witney museum plans to keep up a biennial showcasing "American Art" they may need to come up with some sort of definition of what they want, or maybe it should be exclusively American artists (whether they were born here or live here now needs to be clearly defined). It's possible that the various people involved in finding and showcasing individual artists need to collaborate a little more closely too. Jason Farago seems to think that none of the exhibits have anything to do with any others and maybe that's not important either… It just seems that, if they are going to call it "American Art", they need to have a criterion on which to base it so that people don't feel slighted when they come to view it. All art is incredibly diverse these days so it seems to me that it's the title of the show that needs to be changed.
ReplyDeleteI find this article slightly aggravating. Jason Farago writes the article with his own opinion of the artists that exemplify the current American art scene, but he makes it sound like those are the only three artists. What about the other 100 artists that are participating this year? My understanding is that the American culture has advanced with the melting pot of people who are apart of our society, that is why there may not seem to be a common thread through the work. The influences of every nation is present within the work, isn't that a thread of commonality, a point of connection? I also feel that the three curators worked too separately. Each person was in charge of a single floor, which implies that they did not work together in planning the biennial. Each floor represents a singular interpretation of American art and does not comment on the connecting points or even present the work in a manner that doesn't seem haphazard. When all is said and done, when an exhibition is created to show the common pulse of the current art scene, the curators should be working together.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article about the Witney museums biennial showcasing of "American Art" I put myself in the position of the exhibit viewer and audience member. At first I thought the tittle "American Art" was too general and in-descriptive of a name for a collection that was so eclectic. Then as I pondered my own definition of what the term "Contemporary Art" looks like to me, my list of what constitutes as "American Art" grew larger and even more ambiguous. In my opinion the word "contemporary", as it pertains to art, is synonymous with the word "new". This doesn't mean that I categorize a piece of art as being "contemporary" just by its date of creation. Instead I view "contemporary art" as an artists ability to create something never been seen before using new and old techniques, different worldly mediums (tools) and multiculturalistic trends to convey the totality of meaning in their work. In turn, "American Art" is very much the same in the sense that it is a compilation of different cultures, ethnicity's and nationalities coming together to portray the experience of living in America. Since our country is such a melting pot of cultural differences, it seems to provide artists, (like those exhibited in the biennial showcasing), with the ability to show how cultural influences and societal trends make "American Art" so eclectically beautiful.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading the article, It seems like the "American Art" show needs to be opened up to more artists. It seems like the reputation for the artists chosen for to be in the show are not thought to be American artists. The artists are not directly linked to America. I think that the curators need to dig deeper and maybe look outside the box to find some American artists who are tied to America to be in the show. It kinda seems like the public didn't think that the show lived up to the title American Art. The public thought maybe thought there was going to be a little more patriotism show in the art, I don't know. The American public probably had high expectations and were wanting to throw up the middle finger and say "F#*@ ya, American art is number 1!" or something stupid along those lines. And hey, maybe there just isn't any good American artists. We are a new country. We don't have as many world renowned artists like other countries at the moment. We probably have a couple prodigies brewing in kindergarden right about now. I guess we just have to wait till those little guys/girls grow up and maybe than we can have a good American Art Gallery.
ReplyDeleteThis article was a great summation of the trends that American art has been taking. I agree with the article in terms of how the term "American" is becoming diffuse due to both the intermingling of the world via the internet and immigration. I disagreed with the statement at the end of the first paragraph following the subtitle Broad Stripes, in which the author was questioning the significance in holding a national art exhibition anymore, practically due to the internet and this blurred concept of what "American art" is. I honestly find resources such as the internet for viewing art to be incredibly brief and frankly subjective due to the fact that one will not be able to gain their own impression of any work without seeing it in a full context that the artist probably prefers. And in terms of the general confusion about the current biennial and it's overall theme or concurrent concept, I use the exact same example they offer to defend the belief that this work will all come together to share some sense of an idea or movement. The work's miscellaneous nature is evident, especially in comparison to the other work within the same show. However, the connection that stands out to me just from amongst the remarking quotes rephrased in the article, is the practice of numbing an entire idea that has/could have potential to challenge or deeply satisfy the viewer in some way. This is to me, metaphoric of how desensitized we've become to most things because of said internet and things of the like. Which, is ironically mentioned in the article as being some sort of replacement to the physical exhibition to begin with. I leave this article in pieces due to the fact that it is not appearing to deeply analyze the work in which it is referring to in the beginning, and seeing that it's lack of understanding the work is hysterically ironic because it defends a topic that I see to be very possible and clear in this biennial.
ReplyDelete"American" Art is a tricky to define considering that the the country is a melting pot of so many different cultures. Our fundamentals are rooted in the past traditions of the world. The culture that has developed through American history is what causes these fundamentals to evolve into something so particular. America has a very unique culture that differentiates from others and these "contemporary" customs of American society are naturally present in the art work as well. The museum in subject specific in targeting art which in some way represents the country and so it is art such as the "Pillar of Inquire" and "Ignorant Transparencies" that the curator seeks out. It seems like the criticism that the pieces received is exactly what the artists wanted. The displayed art really represent the diversity of our country. It is very fascinating to see how contemporary art changes over time. The exhibition might be more successful if it affiliated with more artists because there are more than a couple of views on American society ad I feel more of these views could be expressed by more artists, which would simultaneously stir up more controversy which is what the Museum should want.
ReplyDeleteArt made by americans can represent anything. A show about contemporary American art should represent our diversity as a country, and as artists. I think that the critics where not satisfied because the show was so scattered. It didnt answer the question of what american contemporary art is. but at this point there is no answer. Asking what American contemporary art is is like asking what the global art trend is. In the past the shows seemed to be focused on art influenced by american topics. A lot of the criticism seemed to be directed at the content being too boring. One of the curators based his part of the show on what a manhattan gallery should look like. Compared to the 1993 show that seems boring and unrepresentative of America as a whole. Working as curators to some of the largest contemporary collections these curators may have lost their relationship with the american people.
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ReplyDeleteWhat can we really classify as American Art, is American Art just art that was created in the States? Or is it more, is it the idea of freedom and everything else categorized as “American”. It seems as if this years Whitney Biennial has a lot of controversy surrounding its choice of artist’s and art displayed. In the article its stated that the show was “Admirably diverse, beautiful and ugly at once, and very confused about the future”. If the curators of the show did not correspond with one another before the show and about the selection of artists’, there is a great chance of the artwork not mixing well with one another. Who’s to say that its not a good thing that there is so much talk about how boring the show was or that is wasn't a show full of exciting eye-opening art? I don’t believe that there is a lack of cutting edge art in America, I believe they might have just chose the, not so exciting.