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Posted Mar. 4, 2008, 6:10 p.m. ET
The Whitney Biennial's Off-Site Armory Show Is a Roomy Survey of This and That
By Carol Lee
Just checked out the Armory (where Aaron Young had his motorcycle collaboration with Tom Ford back in September 2007) installment of the Whitney Biennial 2008. The curators, Henriette Huldisch and Shamim M. Momin, took a leap of faith a few blocks down on Park Ave. and 67th St. and gave the Biennial a lot more room to breathe. Though that may have been the intention, my overwhelming first impression after a quick glance was that the art strewn about in this powerhouse landmark is hard up to compete with the majestic building itself, which really exerts its personality in a rumbling and brooding way like John Huston in Chinatown.
In a show where the venue is a co-star, there are some great works of art too. Carlo McCormick and I agreed that DJ Olive (Gregor Asch)'s somber, cryptic and musical installation was one of the best -- it's the Urs Fischer piece of this Biennial. The key is to really take your time and savor each room (every artist/collective gets a room) for what it is -- don't try to look for the glue that binds everything together, it's not that kind of show. I have not seen the main event yet -- I'm saving it for tonight! So this is by no means the last word on the Biennial but -- dare I use the C-word -- watch out for the curmudgeons, I think we're in for some controversy!
Picture above: Installation by Bozidar Brazda
MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE JUMP >
The Armory
Olaf Breuning
DJ Olive
DJ Olive
Kembra Pfahler
William Cordova & Leslie Hewitt
MK Guth
Eduardo Sarabia
Mario Ybarra, Jr.
Gardar Eide Einarsson
Comments
caca poo poo
Posted at 2:34 p.m. ET on Mar 13, 2008 by carlos
Carol Lee - You are one of the most abhorrent, most vapid, and most irresponsible writers the Internet has spawned. Your articles/blogs are so full of youth-cult nonsense, claiming this or that twenty-five year old has "conquered the art world" or "the curating world"(by which you mean the under-30 years-old fashion-oriented fraction of the art world that shares a common interest or lineage with the East Village and SoHo of the 70s and 80s. Do you know what real curating is? Do you know about the tens-of-thousands of very established artists all over the world, who have been internationally exhibited and theorized about, that consistute the field you are so misguidedly trying to describe, by making wildly inaccurate and uninformed claims about it?
You should keep your writing limited to fashion, and leave more complicated things out of it.
Thanks
Posted at 3:29 p.m. ET on Jan 13, 2010 by samantha
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