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5/3/2008

Whitney Biennial 2008

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

The 2008 Biennial, the seventy-fourth in the series of Whitney Annual and Biennial exhibitions held since 1932, presents eighty-one artists working at a time when art production is above all characterized by heterogeneity and dispersal. However, within the enormously differentiated field that we (perhaps absurdly) continue to yoke under the term “contemporary art,” certain prevalent modes of working and thematic concerns are particularly germane to the moment.

Many of the projects presented in the exhibition explore fluid communication structures and systems of exchange that index larger social, political, and economic contexts, often aiming to invert the more object-oriented operations of the art market. Recurring concerns involve a nuanced investigation of social, domestic, and public space and its translation into form—primarily sculptural, but also photographic and cinematic. Many artists reconcile rigorous formal and conceptual underpinnings with personal narratives or historical references. While numerous works demonstrate an explicit or implicit engagement with art history, particularly the legacy of modernism, as well as a pronounced interest in questioning the staging and display of art, others chart the topography and architecture of the decentralized American city and take inspiration from postindustrial landscapes and urban decay. Using humble or austere materials or employing calculated messiness or modes of deconstruction, they present works distinguished by their poetic sensibility as they discover pockets of beauty in sometimes unexpected places.

There is an evident trend toward creating work of an ephemeral, event-based character, in the form of music and other performance, movement workshops, radio broadcasts, publishing projects, community-based activities, film screenings, culinary gatherings, or lectures. Such projects do not stand in opposition to institutions; rather, considering each of these multiple platforms equally important, artists show objects in the museum or gallery even as they seek ways to complicate and transcend its parameters. In this spirit, from March 6–23 the 2008 Biennial continues at Park Avenue Armory with an extensive program of events and performances.

Across media, much work in this year’s Biennial concerns politics although its mode of address is often oblique or allegorical. Persistence, belief, and a desire to locate meaning threads through these many modes and activities rooted in what feels like a transitional moment of history. Rather than positing a definitive answer or approach, these artists exhibit instead a passion for the search, positioned in the immediate reality of our uncertain sociopolitical times.

CHIMNEYS AND TOWERS: CHARLES DEMUTH'S LATE PAINTINGS OF LANCASTER
February 23-April 27, 2008
Between 1927 and his death in 1935, Charles Demuth produced his last major series of paintings of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the town in which he was raised and lived intermittently throughout his life. This exhibition carefully examines, for the first time, this key group of paintings, beginning with My Egypt, the precisionist depiction of a Lancaster grain elevator that is perhaps Demuth's best known and most powerful late work.

THE WHITNEY'S COLLECTION
Opens January 30, 2007
This new fifth-floor installation takes a fresh look at some of the greatest of the Whitney's works, from the early 20th-century innovations of Arthur Dove and Max Weber and Precisionist gems of Charles Sheeler to iconic Abstract Expressionist masterpieces by Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock, and classics like Jasper Johns's Three Flags, works that revel in the "poetry of the everyday."

Public Programs
Admission to all programs, except those on Friday evenings: $8; senior citizens and students with valid ID $6. Friday evening programs are free with Museum admission, which is pay-what-you-wish from 6-9pm. Advance sales are strongly recommended, as space is limited. Tickets may be purchased at the Museum Admissions Desk or online at whitney.org. Inquiries: email public_programs@whitney.org or call (212) 570-7715. All programs are free for members; for member reservations, please contact memberinfo@whitney.org.

Seminars with Artists
Launched in the late 1960s as one of the Museum's first public programs, Seminars with Artists has provided a forum for intimate conversations with the most notable American artists of the past forty years. This season we highlight artists exhibiting in the Biennial 2008, and provide each speaker with a lively platform to engage a topic that is crucial to an understanding and appreciation of contemporary art.

March 25 7pm
Matt Mullican

Seminars with Artists, Multiple Edition
Multiple Edition is conceived as a forum for experimentation and artist-driven presentations. Each artist in the series is commissioned to create 200 multiples that will be given away to the public-free of charge-at the event.

March 28 7pm
Ry Rocklen
Inspired by the Duchampian sculptural tradition, Ry Rocklen doctors and assembles society's leftovers from streets, dumps, and thrift stores into playful ready-mades with calculated cultural connotations.

Open Studio
Exhibiting artists in the Whitney Biennial 2008 engage the dynamic and interactive components of their work, opening up the aesthetic goals of each piece through performance and public participation. Open Studio is free with Museum admission.

March 14 2pm
Marina Rosenfeld
Marina Rosenfeld's composed musical performances juxtapose the visual, the improvisational and the sonic to explore her self-described "interest in music as a form of social life... where ... the collective and the personal are inextricable." This program will take place at the Seventh Regiment Armory, at Park Avenue and 67th Street.

March 19 2pm
New Humans
The New Humans performance collaborative extends Mika Tajima's visual art practice into installations, video, and sound recordings and features collaborators Howie Chen, Charles Atlas, and C. Spencer Yeh. This program will take place at the Seventh Regiment Armory, at Park Avenue and 67th Street.

From March 6-23, the Biennial extends to Park Avenue Armory

PARK AVENUE ARMORY
643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
Daily 12-8pm; earlier and later for performances and events.
Subway: 6 to 68th Street / Hunter College; F to 63rd Street
Bus: M101, M102, M103 to 68th Street
Admission Free

Whitney Museum of American Art
45 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, New York, NY 10021
Hours: Wednesday - Thursday 11 am - 6 pm
Friday 1 - 9 pm (6 - 9 pm pay-what-you-wish admission)
Saturday - Sunday 11 am - 6 pm
Monday - Tuesday Closed
Admission Adults: $15
Senior citizens (62 and over) and students with valid ID: $10
Members, New York City public high school students with valid student ID, and children under 12: Free

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