2010 Whitey Biennial

Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher
Michael Asher
Babette Mangolte

This year's Whitney Biennial in New York City is the museum's 75th annual exhibit and is said to represent the museum's past, present and future in the art world. The exhibition incorporates multi-media, paintings, drawings, installations and live performances.

An internationally acclaimed artist, Babette Mangolte moved from France to New York in the 1970's and works primarily in film and still photography and has submitted an extremely interesting installation entitled "How to Look..." which comprises hundreds of black and white photographs.

As much as art tends to have no limits, Michael Asher has found one. His proposal for the Biennial was to have his exhibit open twenty four hours a day for one week, but due to human resource limitations and legalities the exhibit has been shorted to three days. His work has been described as "logical or symbolic inversion of an explicit institutional condition". His imagination and creativity earned his the Bucksbaum Award which is given every two years to a Whitney Biennial artist.

Described as an "immersive film environment", Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher have produced a space with sliding panels and abstract images projected on the walls. In the center is a rotating John F. Kennedy bust. The panels sliding on the wall are made from wood, steel and resin, an interesting combination of materials that interacts with projections. I am particularly eager to see the space because of its mesh of abstraction and iconic. With JFK's extremely recognizable head in the center, I'm sure it fools the audience into trying too hard to make sense of the projections on the wall.

As much as this year's exhibit is sufficiently smaller than previous years, the politics are certainly present. Curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari are not shy about expressing their political views and the cover of this year's catalogue is President Obama wearing a cowboy hat. It is no coincidence that Edgar Cleijne's and Ellen Gallagher's furthers this expressiveness of a renewed era.

The Biennial opened February 25th and will continue through May 30th.