Abject Mess

"Silent Film of a Tree Falling in the Forest" (2005-2006)
by Mungo Thomson (photo courtesy the Whitney Museum)

The Whitney Biennial
March 6 - June 1, 2008 (March 6 - 23 at the Park Ave. Armory)

The dance marathon, tequila bar and zoo raised my hopes that the evil spirits of the '06 Biennial had been cast aside. The '08 edition is a bit better, but darkness prevails again. The zoo has no animals, the bar was closed and I only saw one dancer doing her thing.

The co-curators tout the show's anti-market sensibility, evidenced by its use of humble materials. It's true, there's plenty of cheap stuff, notably unfinished lumber. Also debris and a mess of other random objects. But the overriding aesthetic isn't so much as against the market, as against ideas, beauty and craft. Maybe distrusting is a better word as this art's passionless cool puts it in opposition to nothing.

Exemplifying this nihilist mode is "The Grand Machine/THEAREOLA" (2002), a kind of psychotic radio station or factory by the late Jason Rhodes on prominent view in the museum's first-floor project room. It's littered with items assembled in their own incompressible order -- CDs, desk chairs, and other random things annotated by nonsense scrawled messages like the in-joke graffiti of an addled artist. Sort of like Sarah Sze, but without the fractal beauty.

In a similar vein is Phoebe Washburn's "While Enhancing a Diminishing Deep Down Thirst, The Juice Broke Loose (The Birth of a Soda Shop)" (2008), a bare-wood structure peaked with flowers growing amid golf balls or nourished by Gatorade. This isn't a statement, environmental or otherwise, as much as a ramshackle riddle.

The critic's favorite is Jedediah Caesar's sculptures, which encase studio debris in resin creating a big multicolor block -- "Helium Brick aka Summer Snow" (2006) -- a visual stand-out amdist the otherwise dull offerings. Also above the fray are Charles Long's Giacometti-like sculptures inspired by bird droppings. Made of river sediment, papier-mâché and plaster, they evince a kind of simple poetry.

Another artist referencing poop is Amanda Ross-Ho, whose installation's major feature is an over-sized cat box. (Thankfully, no giant cat.) The piece also features a peg-board wall to which are attached various scrappy images such as could be found in a studio. And artist Fia Backström contributed a wall covered in Whitney-logo wallpaper decorated with cryptic words like "Communal" written in a brown shit script.

Several artists use architectural forms to explore emptiness and incompleteness. Examples include William Cordova’s "House That Frank Lloyd Wright Built 4 Fred Hampton and Mark Clark" (2006), an empty wooden house frame whose title alludes to at the place where two Black Panthers were killed by the Chicago police in 60s. Rubin Ochoa's "Accidental Disjuncture" (2008) is a messy pile of chain-link fence, concrete and rebar -- "construction worker aesthetic," in the Whitney's words. Reading the wall text was mandatory, and more often than not didn't help.

The pied piper of the inscrutable mess aesthetic is Rachael Harrison, who's also now showing at the MoMA and the New Museum (she also contributed to the 2002 Biennial). For this show she has a homely room, juxtaposing a wall of scribbled-on photos of sculptures and a video projection of "Pirates of the Caribbean" staring Johnny Depp. Called "Sops for Cerberus" (2008), it apparently refers to the two-headed Hades guard dog that it's necessary to bripe (sop) with cake. Oblique and abject, the unsettling work relishes unanswered questions and unworkable meanings.

A more playful take on brokenness are Walead Beshly's glass boxes cracked through FexEx shipment. Also enjoyable is Eduardo Sarabia's stockroom of larger-than-life 99-cent store-like objects that may be poking fun at commerce. Sarabia is also the bartender-creator of the aforementioned tequila bar.

The strongest works are videos, including Omar Fast's "The Casting" (2007), a look at psychological fallout of the Iraq War, and Javier Téllez "Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See" (2007), a poetic look at relative truth featuring an encounter between an elephant and several blind persons.

Over at the Park Avenue Armory are a few attempts to bring joy to an otherwise depressed display. These participatory pieces include the tequila and the dance marathon as well as opportunities to sign up for a therapy session or to have your portrait drawn. Most of the installations, including a "chill-out room" done by DJ Olive -- seem designed to mesh with the rave-like series of events, including a wedding/performance by a tacky goth-punk outfit called the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.

The biggest kick comes from the Armory building itself -- a charming relic replete with wood-paneling, jewel-like chandeliers and a herd of wall-mounted animal heads.

In one of the better rooms, a uniformed collective calling themselves MK Guth work at weaving red ribbons into yards of braided hair. Visitors are invited to write on the ribbons their answer to the question "What is worth preserving?"

Unfortunately, for this Biennial, my answer would be not much. Purportedly anti-market and democratic, the '08 show is in fact decadent and dispiriting.