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Saturday
Mar222008

Whitney Biennial 2008: Painting's Failure (Again)


It has become almost obligatory in a Whitney Biennial review to bemoan the lack of painting, which tells us that a certain idea of “painting” remains a standard against which to measure this art exhibition's failure. But painting is always included, differently each time.

The 2004 Biennial congratulated itself for the inclusion of painting. Chrissie Iles wrote a whole essay on it in the plush exhibition catalog, Richard Prince, Alex Hay, Robert Mangold, Mel Bochner, and David Hockney played grandfather to a younger generation of painters with the belief that such intergenerational dialog could “make sense of a world gone wrong,” suggesting a “continuing desire to reaffirm art’s ability to articulate alternative thinking, and restore a sense of meaning to a world in which the nihilistic and the restorative coexist in all too fragile balance.” In response to 9/11, the curators hauled painting back into the Whitney as the paternalistic fold of alternative thinking - a history of art, built on ruptures and continuities, for which painting - unlike any other medium - remains the authoritative model. But the paternalistic tone of authority that Modernism lay claim to was lost in the conviction that painting was now only a matter of making the next move in a game.*

In the 2006 Biennial there was an awful lot of painting, by more than twenty artists. This was in the inclusive mood of the art fair and the “alternative spaces” that sprout in its midst. There was some citing of Dave Hickey here and there, some criteria for alternative culture, and references to de Toqueville. The older generation here was represented by the drawings of prison-house punk rock legend Daniel Johnston, and the previously censored ‘70s sex paintings by Dorothy Iannone. For the most part, painting appeared as an expression of rebellion, really only still in the world as a medium because of its contingencies. The most realist were Marilyn Minter’s glamour-trash, and Rudolf Stingel’s ennui, the most sensitively beautiful the s&m watercolors of Monica Majoli. Curatorial choices were for the most part driven by the desire to express a cultural attitude.

It is almost as though in the 2008 Whitney Biennial the art historical “grandfather effect” has taken hold, with the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. And notice how tidily the elders line up, it’s a structuralist’s toy:

John Baldessari - conceptual art
Robert Bechtle - photorealism
Mary Heilmann - pop abstract expressionism
Olivier Mosset - the monochrome

It is not the case, therefore, that painting isn’t important to this exhibition - it is quite important. A more interesting question is what might be occurring in claims for painting as a relevant medium for our time? Ellen Harvey, Karen Kilimnik and Joe Harvey are the painters on board.

One of the things that strikes me about this show is the stated embrace of failure. In her own voice, Ellen Harvey says through the headset that her painting installation Museum of Failure: Collection of Possible Subjects and Invisible Self-Portraits (2007) “is a monument to failure, the ghost of the piece that might have been...hand made representation is automatically a failure - let’s start off by failing as extravagantly as possible.” Photography appears in two ways - first as the hole in a carnival prop, through which one puts one’s head, and second in the carefully rendered self-portraits, taken from photographs that have obliterated their subject by a flash in the mirror. It is the naive and false despair of the beginning art student, struck by inadequacy in the face of nature and photography. Why the feigned appeal to such misunderstandings and false anxieties? Harvey's failure is just another parody of a diehard narrative that keeps re-appearing because we can congratulate ourselves for knowing it. Photography and the death of painting: Standing between the trompe l’oeil wall of obliterated self-portraits and the discomfort of a bank of fluorescent light, perhaps we are to feel obliterated by the flash as well? The overwrought machinery of it fails me, and I respond to this as rhetoric, as just another move in the game to legitimize the ambition to simply keep on painting. And this is what Ellen Harvey excels at, it is all about finding that one little hook in order to maintain sheer continuity in fear of its end. Painting is only the prop.

Likewise, Karen Kilimnik’s “bad paintings” of peacocks and horses, nearly serve more as the prop for the chandeliered room that contains them (not pictured here) than as paintings on their own. Like Kilimnik, numerous artists have toyed with the context of exhibition but without taking so much obvious pleasure in playing the role of a false aristocracy. In Kilimnik’s playacting dollhouse, viewing her paintings, luscious as they occasionally may be, is only possible - we are told - because of the social conventions of the class they serve. Whatever space for the unconscious there might be has been wallpapered over by culture’s demands to fit the role. It’s the stuff that good little girls are made of, and we are put in the uncomfortable position of wanting to submit.

Differently, each of these three younger painters confound the categories that their elders so neatly embody, and what they share is their call upon space beyond the traditional limits of painting. Harvey devises proposals that allow her to continue tediously filling up space as though she were an anonymous tradesman, her earlier landscapes as "beauty" displacing graffiti, for ex., and Kilimnik's miniatures invite us to a "let's pretend" world that feeds on status and glamour in the spirit of denial. Harvey and Kilimnik express little trust in inherited conventions, even as they compulsively perform them, milking the endgame for whatever it's worth.

Joe Bradley’s flimsy monochrome assemblages put their weight elsewhere. His paintings nearly march into space in a manner closer to sculpture than to painting. This call upon space knowingly owes some inheritance to Russian Constructivism, Stella’s early shaped canvases and Minimalist theatricality. His reference to the ludic pleasure of childhood succeeds in holding a rather bizarre tension between abstraction and representation, not adequately represented by the press photograph, which registers figuration a little too quickly. We are equally submitted to the cultural code by it's very gendered terms, primary colors, and infantilizing form and scale, but the false burdens of elitism and representational malaise so rhetorically presented by Harvey and Kilimnik fall away here. By turns humbly joyful and overpowering, there is something of a figural logo militarism that parades about the room, so that abstract sensual pleasure and impending corporate anonymity and subjection appear at once. This was unexpected, and didn't feel like just another overwrought move in the game we all know.

By Catherine Spaeth

* Chrissie Iles, "Altered States," Whitney Biennial 2004, Chrissie Iles, Shamim M. Momin, Debra Singer, c. 2004, Whitney museum of Art, pp. 56-69.

Photo Credits: Ellen Harvey, Museum of Failure: Collection of Impossible Subjects & Invisible Self-Portraits, 2007 (installation view, Luxe Gallery, New York, 2007). Rear-illuminated hand-engraved plexiglass and aluminum frame, fluorescent lights, wall paint, and oil on canvas, twelve parts, in secondhand frames, 96 x 120 in. (243.9 x 304.8 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Luxe Gallery, New York;Robert Bechtle, Six Houses on Mound Street, 2006. Oil on canvas, 36 x 66 in. (91.4 x 167.6 cm). Private collection;Olivier Mosset, Untitled, 2007. Sprayed liner on canvas, 48 x 48 in. (121.9 x 121.9 cm).;Karen Kilimnik, the castle great staircase, Scotland, 2007. Water soluble oil color on canvas, 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm). Collection of The Stephanie and Peter Brant Foundation;Joe Bradley, Installation view, Joe Bradley, Peres Projects, Berlin, 2007; from left: Cavalry, 2007; Itz, 2007; Night Runner with Strike, 2007; The Thing, 2007. All photos courtesy of the Whitney Museum of Art.

Reader Comments (21)

An interesting take on The WB, CS.

My impression was that the curator’s just weren’t as alive to (or good at) painting or pictures, as to installation and 3-D work. Not surprisingly then, when they did include them, they favored treating them as installations, and painters that encouraged that approach. Harvey, Kilimnik and Bradley all excel at that (incidentally, I thought the figurative aspect to Bradley’s, has got a lot to do with the space or distance the viewer is given to first/last consider them from – again an installational aspect).

But Kilimnik I thought a little over-exposed lately.

One of the small but pleasant surprises for me was the Matt Mullican drawings – there were too many and obviously an ensemble or wallpaper effect was sought - but it was interesting to watch an older artist re-engage with vigorous drawing and text. This was one of the few cases where an older artist wasn’t just resting on their laurels, and well worth a place in this kind of survey.

Text, I think a hot issue once more and although well represented in the WB, I thought someone like Dana Frankfort would have been more value than Harvey – but obviously not as installationally-friendly.

March 26, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCAP

Thanks, CAP, and nice call on Dana Frankfurt and painting.

Huldisch and Momin are thinking historically - soaked in the ether of the post-medium age, painting and sculpture are still trying to figure themselves out.

Matt Mullican is interesting - the "too many" is part and parcel of it, though, so I wouldn't wish for less. Maybe what could be interesting is to consider how Mullican's obsessive drive to "keep drawing" differs from Harvey's to keep on painting? If one is valued more highly than the other, let's say, what criteria would you be resting on?

I also checked out your blog and it's quite focussed and well researched, I enjoyed seeing that!

March 26, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCatherine Spaeth

Well I wouldn’t buy a ‘post-medium age’ for starters. I can see very little evidence for the art historian, or historically informed thinker, critic or curator, to adopt such a position. Installations, site specific or temporary works, involving text, performance, event and recording (by audio and/or visual means) amongst other objects, all adequately answer to descriptions of medium, all assume traditional categories with which to contrast. And work in such modes hardly dominates current production in any case, as a brief tour of even just NY galleries attests.

In fact there are a great many more problems for establishing the identity or definition of a work, if one were to discard medium, or a classification of materials and techniques involved. To take a more philosophical position, I would reject the implied notion of pure content, of the work that functions, irrespective of means. No meaning without medium is my slogan.

So I disagree that painting and sculpture are ‘still trying to figure themselves out’. They proceed at pace - and make history for it! I think the problem with the WB curators is that they are still trying to figure out painting and sculpture, and they may not be alone in this, but it is hardly a convincing position from which to interpret contemporary art.

As to Mullican, I mention him, because I hadn’t noticed anyone else acknowledging him. I wouldn’t necessarily value him higher than Harvey, I just wanted to flag his presence on the text tip. Mullican began with pictogram and logo-like motifs in a variety of media and went on to build elaborate schemes or ‘encryptions’ for them, often as commissioned or fabricated works. Obviously text can carry similar latent meanings or nuances, and I think as Mullican returns to just drawing – although it could as well be painting – he looks at elementary calligraphic and medium-specific features. This could lead him back to just advertising, or it could lead him to something more abstract again, it’s not earth shattering – discoveries rarely are, up close - but it’ll be interesting to see.

BTW - thanks for the compliment on Currentartpics!

March 26, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCAP

Nice response, CAP! When I say that "soaked in the ether of the post-medium age, painting and sculpture are still trying to fIgure themselves out," what I mean is that the media of sculpture and painting never left, but they have also been responding, of necessity, to notions such as 'interdisciplinarity.' And, really, there is no question in my mind that painting and sculpture have long been, if we can give these media "spirit," at least asking questions about their boundaries in relation to each other. It used to be that sculpture was marble or bronze, for ex., not red or yellow.

I wonder what it means to set a standard by what "dominates current production." This might be the difference between an art historical view and some other kind of view. Also institutional - most collectors don't have the warehouse space for something that exceeds sculpture or painting as traditionally understood. These private homes are usually not so invested in participating in a history of art to the extent that a museum would be. And yes, we are talking about a curated exhibition, not a ride up and down the elevator of gallery tower.

Also, I can't really let you off the hook for saying there were "too many" Mullican drawings! This is an expression of your desire to force the work into a more portable version that you associate with medium-specificity. This misses the point, by being so in excess of those boundaries, Mullican exposes the compulsive repetitions and systems of thought that drawing, above all else, lends itself to. That is medium-specificity, is it not?

I also draw the line when it comes to a post-medium age, which is why I chose to write about painting.

March 27, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCatherine Spaeth

Well another thoughtful response was to have followed yours CS, directly above this, but it doesn’t seem to have been published for some reason. So allow me to try again, and briefly Re-CAP.

When I mentioned dominant modes of work in galleries, I’m taking a rough measure of current practice – and whether for historical or other reasons, this seems a reasonable place to look (although not the only place, of course). Note: I do not confuse commercial galleries with a museum, - the first is part of what is studied, the second is a means of studying it. Therefore I don’t equate a brief tour of galleries with the role of curating – but nor do I allow that curating – to an art historical end – can afford to ignore commercial galleries when researching contemporary practice. An art historian will want to report on accepted practices, rather than simply preferred ones, surely? In order to confirm these, regular and wide-ranging visits are advisable. But perhaps you see the role of the art historian in contemporary art differently?

Or is it the elevators that bother you?

For a curator at a museum to suppose an art historical perspective; is also to spell this out between display of works and catalogue or other notes – to appeal to an accepted version of art history at some point. I don’t see that the role of curator there automatically confers this, and when they do not or cannot, it seems fair to censure them. To flail around with ideas like post-media or interdisciplinary practice falls well short, as art history.

As to the Mullican drawings – I should perhaps have said there are too many for the confined space. Although some are better than others. I don’t see that that cramped little booth serves any other purpose than to allow the drawings to briefly serve as wallpaper, - which of course is quite sufficient to curators focussed upon installation and decor. I have no desire for small, portable or affordable drawings, I only wished to have the space to study individual works by Mullican more comfortably (and profitably). Had Mullican made each of them 15 feet wide, I would still be impressed with the wavering lettering and shifts in weight of line, choice of phrasing and spelling. Nor do I ascribe any particular scale to drawing or appeal to intrinsic or medium-specific properties! Nor do I agree that drawing naturally lends itself to ‘compulsive repetitions’ anymore than I agree factory work and gym exercises constitute sketching. Just when ‘compulsive repetitions’ become thoughtful and thorough variations on a theme and where drawing becomes painting, I leave to another time.

March 27, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCAP

Your responses are all good ones, and I think we are basically in agreement - I point out the list of four painters not as a gesture of approval, but with real disappointment in what looks to me like an overdetermined art historical maneuver. Absolutely, I don't think these curators have a great eye for paintings. But at the same time I appreciate what I have seen here, and am glad it was pulled together.

I do have some admiration for the art historical project, I think I prefer this attempted return to historicize painting over and above the gluttony of the previous biennial, which didn't attempt to "think" painting at all. For me, this thinking is not a matter of bundling up painting into some kind of conceptual scheme but to describe what is happening, how painting thinks itself, as it were. (This is the beef I have with you about Mullican - you can't wish for it to be different, the work of art is what is there, what has already happened.)

And so all those window fronts and elevators are necessary, and it is obvious that the curators were hitting the bricks and pushing those buttons, as do we. Perhaps to say, in the end, that painting isn't dead, but that in some way it is s struggling with its failure.

To their benefit, dealing with a notion of failure could have led to an outmoded bit of humanist existentialism, a hint of which is above, to want evidence of some sort of struggle. Nostalgia does perform this relief, distancing the painter's subjectivity from actual presence in that arena of struggle, and these curators certainly succeeded in exhibiting that. But you can also see that with regard to painting I would rather not see it their way, in that a certain false relation to art history's "burdens" is definitely at fault, has taken the place of a rightfully abandoned emphasis on existential struggle, as it were. And apparently on your own terms you agree with me that there is something wrong with art history here.

March 28, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCatherine Spaeth

Yes! Unfortunately I’ve probably been sidetracked by minor quibbles and concealed our broader agreement. The issue of painting in these survey shows, dedicated to the entire range of the fine arts, is always tricky. Painting has traditionally attracted the most interest, certainly the most literature, and however one wants to relate other media, pictures remain central, and pictures start with painting. Painting is hardly redundant by the rise of other kinds of pictures, obviously, if anything capitalizes on the diversity. Understanding what painting does now (assuming it does only one thing) and where pictures are going, ought therefore to be the first priority.

So I think you’re right to point to the role of painting in the 2008 WB, and right to ponder the art history at work in the selection.

But looking to the format, I have some sympathy for the curators. Every two years The Whitney wants to make the statement: ’Where American Art Stands Today’ but obviously it’s not going to stand very far from where it did, two years ago. Two years is a tiny history, by itself. The trouble is they want revelations, but as the art historian could tell them, ‘revelations’ are rarely recognized as such, generally take a few years to become ‘overnight successes’ – ‘instantly acclaimed’.

I don’t know exactly what the rules are, but clearly the administration don’t want too many of the same artists in successive surveys, and yet their omission then creates serious problems for continuity, not to say coherence. One doesn’t really have a picture of American Art, without them, or if one does without them, then one didn’t really have a picture of American Art, last time. Which is it to be? An entirely new history, or a history of only two years? Neither is especially welcome.

I’m more comfortable with the curators just coming up with a theme that plays across the desired range of media. Skip the more comprehensive claim, and accept some underlying aspect to a wide range of work – ‘a themed’ show – possibly says as much about the curators as the present state of art, but at least avoids a lot of pretension and pretense.

March 28, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCAP

Thanks for your thoughts, Cap!

March 28, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCatherine Spaeth

Oh, that’s really unique thoughts referring to this post! Even the writing work online service can not really simply deal with that.

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