"The Whitney Biennial for Angry Women"

Despite my own white male identity--which destiny I am as powerless to reject as anyone of another gender, ethnic origin, or racial identity--I found this critique quite powerful. For some reason my white male identity (I suppose it's superfluous or, worse, an example of the privilege that status affords me, to assert that I've never actually identified with that term) has yet to admit me to a Whitney Biennial.

Here are a few selections from a critique of the Biennial from The New Inquiry:

The Whitney Biennial for Angry Women

By Eunsong Kim and Maya Isabella Mackrandilal

 

"Every two years, the Biennial anoints its debutants for the next round of museum trough feeding. Careers are ignited, financial introductions between artists and the wealthy are made, and Americans are re-educated as to what Art is supposed to mean in this country.

"This is the Whitney Biennial for Angry Women."

~~~
"The following quotes are drawn from the curators’ introduction to the Biennial catalogue:

'We hope that our iteration of the Biennial will suggest the profoundly diverse and hybrid cultural identity of America today.'

"Translation: 'The 2014 Whitney Biennial is the whitest Biennial since 1993. Taking a cue from the corporate whitewashing of network television, high art embraces white supremacy under the rhetoric of multicultural necessity and diversity.'"

~~~
"The curatorial statement at the entrance to the fourth floor reads:

 "Donelle Woolford [Joe Scanlan] radically calls into question the very identity of the artist…

"Translation: “Joe Scanlan is a white male professor from Yale who created a black female persona to promote his work, because he thinks that black bodies give their owners an unfair advantage on the art market. We are more comfortable with white fantasies of the other than examining lived experience."

~~~
"[The white man] understands the world better. That’s why he’s the director, the manager, the CEO, okay? That’s why he is in charge of hiring, and we get to be hired, okay?! It’s just the way that things work. He comes up with the ideas. You get paid to play your part. Do you get paid royalties? Do you become credited in the company? Are you the artist? No. But that’s not the point. The point is that he showed us something old that looked like something new, and we must be grateful. Okay?"

~~~
"
Dear White Curators,

"1. Diversity is not the inclusion of those not from New York. Diversity isn’t more white women. Diversity isn’t safe art. Diversity isn’t black bodies put on display by white artists.

"2. You don’t get to appropriate diversity as a buzzword for your PR work. Besides, we know how to count:

"—There is one black female artist (we refuse to count your fictional black female artist)

"—You put the two Puerto Ricans in the basement …

"—HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN is a collective of 38 mostly black & queer artists but barely gets treated as one artist. How amazing would it be if their 38 people counted as 38 people at the Whitney, which would accord them 40% of the museum’s space? They have been allotted an “evolving” temporary screening slot. They are the largest collective in the Biennial yet their real estate is virtually nonexistent.

"—Gary Indiana, another white male artist trafficking in racist fantasies, receives more space, time and visibility than the 38 members of HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN."

~~~
"We need to think about taisha paggett.

"Would the average viewer of the Whitney Biennial know that paggett was in the show? Probably not. Her name haunts the page of the museum guide, she is in “Other Locations.” “Other Locations” is tertiary placement such as: temporary screening schedules, “hallway galleries” and limited-run performances. But this is the Whitney Biennial for Angry Women. And we know she’s there, because we’re intimately familiar with Other Locations. We know she’s there because we set a fine-toothed comb to the catalogue to find her. We didn’t get to see her work in person. We didn’t get to stand with her, moving slowly, feeling our breath. But we can come to rest in her words on the page. To put it in her words, we can think about “a transhistorical, metaphysical her,” because when she talks through her words she speaks our lives back to us. We know this terrain, this terrain of the now. She is the beating heart of what we wish the Whitney was."

~~~
To read the entire article click here.

White Material: art film and allegory

In an uncertain time and an unidentified country in postcolonial Africa a terrible and familiar conflict rages. Bereft of political context, the meaning of the conflict is also left unknown; the allegiances of the combatants are left to the viewers’ imaginations. Only one thing seems absolutely clear: the white landowners who are the main characters must leave and do so quickly.  Why then do they hesitate? That is the question at the heart of this French film by Claire Denis.

The film’s protagonist, if such a tragically flawed character can be called that, is Maria Vial, who manages a coffee plantation owned by her husband’s father. Apparently oblivious to palpable signs, direct exhortations, and even dire threats, she stubbornly insists on staying “one more week” to harvest the coffee. The army that has protected the white establishment is in full retreat. Her workers have fled. In order to replace them she must bribe her way past the gun-waving young men of the village who have set up a road block. Child soldiers wander freely through gaps in the plantation fences and threaten her grown but useless son who responds with an astonishing and frightening transformation. Every scene seethes with tension.

What motivates Maria? This is the burning core of what is both a psychological portrait and an allegory about the consequences of colonialism. Why doesn’t she recognize the futility of her actions? Played masterfully by Isabelle Hupert, Maria is not stupid. At times surprisingly sympathetic she is also stunningly oblivious to her overtly superior attitude towards her black countrymen. She seems incapable of imagining the ruin of her world, let alone the needs, hopes, and fears of all the people she encounters.

Although its obvious narrative relates to Western imperialism and colonial decadence, I believe the film has broader ramifications. It is about the psychology of privilege and power. Maybe I’ve been too affected by the events of the last week right here in Madison, Wisconsin, but I see something akin to what Maria goes through happening in our country.  I see Governor Scott Walker and the national tea party movement as the curling edge of a breaking wave of conservatism that is reacting out of fear. It is the fear of change, the potential for upheaval as our society becomes more and more diverse.

Maria reacts with denial. The oppressed people who have been victimized by colonialism react with violence. Maria’s son…well, I don’t want to ruin it; you’ll have to see the movie to find out how he reacts.

As I write this there is still time to see the last showing of it tonight at the UWM Union theater. (It needs an audience; there was hardly anyone there last night.) Or queue it up on Netflix.

To see the White Material trailer, go to you-tube.