James Kalm returns to the scene of the crime. After being removed from the press list for the 2008 Biennial, and the subsequent getting busted by security and recording of that show on the down low, it seems the Whitney has decided to include the "Kalm Report" as a reputable member of the press for 2010's edition. This exhibition, curated by Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, is touted as a national cross section of the most important and historical art produced during the past two years. Part I features the introduction by Adam Weinberg, and a walk through tour of the fourth floor.

Suzan Frecon

The 2010 Whitney Biennial, which opened last week, was a surprisingly optimistic exhibition, partially due to the choices of the two curators, Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, but also to its pairing with the concurrent exhibition Collecting Biennials on the top floor of the museum. There were surprising parallels between the contemporary attitude of 2010's fully loaded first four floors with the more cerebral weight of plum choices (mainly by male artists) from the museum holdings of works from past Biennials.

There is a theory that when the economy is down, the art world bears more evidence of the works of women artists. In 2010, over 50% of the exhibiting artists are women, some showing strong work with great maturity.

2010
The "Who Dat?" Biennial
Whitney Museum of American Art
February 23 - May 30, 2010

Adam Weinberg addressing the troops

Tuesday, February 23, 2010. 7:00 PM. In his charming remarks earlier this afternoon during the press opening of the less than charming 2010 Whitney Biennial, co-curator Francesco Bonami (who wistfully regretted how difficult it was convincing artists half his age to have dinner with him) alluded to the intrinsic arbitrariness of all Biennial exhibitions. As an institution just turned 75 years old, and facilitated under the venerable aegis of the Whitney Museum, each particular Biennial, despite its essential claim to showcase the best and brightest art production of the past two years, is still dependent on the whims and prejudices of its organizers. Hence the unavoidable hit-or-miss possibilities of every succeeding exhibition.

There is no cumulative formula for success, as new curators tend to establish new priorities and then select new artists as the avatars of same. If the turnover seems particularly extreme this year, even educated observers of the art scene might feel confronted by a "Who Dat?" Biennial, an exhibition at least partly populated by a fickle and jejune cast of characters.

Scott Richter is an artist who has been pushing the limits and ideas of paint and painting for decades. After investigating the process of painting and mingling with elements of sculpture, this show displays a returning to the classic rectangle hung on a wall. Richter's canvases are luscious, physical and nuanced, with an undeniable presence that is satisfyingly memorable. Includes an interview with Scott Richter.

CONFUCIUS: His Life and Legacy in Art
February 11 – June 13, 2010
China Institute Gallery
125 East 65th Street, New York

February 16, 2010. Growing up, I didn't have much time for Confucius. Among the prominent Asian philosophers, he took second place to Lao Tzu and Taosim, and for obvious reasons. Taoism seemed more laissez-faire, less involved with propriety and property. It embraced a certain ease and modesty, a harmonious accommodation with nature. There was a nonchalance that sat well with my hipster, slacker ideal of "there's a road we're all on, man, but it really leads nowhere except right back to where we all started from, so don't get me uptight, just chill and pass that j."

My rebellious, reductivist streak left no room for the conventional wisdom of the Confucian status quo, for its apotheosis of family, for using the correct ritual and sacrifice on every occasion, for a strict legal code that could deaden spontaneity. I had dabbled in the Analects, and these dialogs were obviously "wise", but my lingering suspicion was that they were wise in the wrong way. There was no escaping their prim orientation towards duty and decorum.

James Kalm brings viewers along for a trip down memory lane. 1969 was a seminal year marking the end of the age of Aquarius and the depth of the quagmire in Vietnam. The art world was in revolt politically and aesthetically. Changes were coming fast and furiously. In hind sight many of these “radical” positions have become accepted and represent the current establishment. Still, this run-through allows us to appreciate the first dawnings of this new horizon of creative energy. Organized by Neville Wakefield, P.S. 1 Senior Curatorial Advisor; Michelle Elligott, MoMA Archivist; and Eva Respini, MoMA Associate Curator of Photography.

William Powhida, How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality, cover art, Brooklyn Rail, November 2009
(For a larger, more legible image, click here.)

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December 25, 2009. The Brooklyn Rail, founded in 1998, is a scrappy, independent cultural/political broadsheet that covers issues in Brooklyn's waterfront neighborhoods (Williamsburg, Greenpoint, DUMBO, Red Hook) from a politically progressive vantage point. It publishes poetry and fiction and reviews local developments in music, film, dance, theater and books. Most significantly, it provides passionate, detailed, idiosyncratic coverage of the NY arts scene in each and every issue, with a full roster of exhibition reviews, feature articles and long, in-depth "conversations" with artists. Under publisher Phong Bui, it has developed an essential and original voice, and is part of my regular reading list. [Full disclosure: James Kalm, who maintains an ongoing video blog here at post.thing.net, has also contributed regularly to the Rail.]

Viewable online, distributed for free at certain bookstores and alt.culture locations, and also available by subscription, the Rail has a relatively small circulation (around 7,500). Even so, it regularly engages in adventurous promotional efforts normally the province of larger publications; for example, the printing of multiple covers for certain issues to better showcase the artists and contents within.

A case in point: the three different covers of the November 2009 issue. The one I have at home features an image from a Carroll Dunham painting. I understand there was also a Helmut Federle cover. (Both artists had solo shows in NY that month and are interviewed in the November Rail.) However, it is the third cover choice I wish to address here, a b/w drawing by artist, activist, satirist and draftsman William Powhida, executed in full caricature/agitprop mode (and pictured above), in which he addresses cronyism at the New Museum in gleeful, graphic, subversive detail.

PANKABESTIA: Punk Beasts of the Swimming Cities of Serenissima
Anonymous Gallery @ Collective Hardware
169 Bowery (off Delancey), New York
November 20, 2009 - January 1, 2010
curated by Spy Emerson

“Pankabestia: Punk Beasts of the Swimming Cities of Serenissima” is an exhibition about the crew members, the individual artists that supported Swoon’s “Swimming Cities” projects, and it is about my own personal experience as a crew member of the “Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea” and the “Swimming Cities of Serenissima.”

Both daunting projects were based on Swoon’s giant multimedia floating sculptures, beautiful rafts built from trash. As a group, we made these great, impossible situations happen.

^ Bruce High Quality Foundation, Bachelors of Avignon ^

Bruce High Quality Foundation University
Susan Inglett Gallery
522 West 24 Street
New York NY 10011
December 8, 2009 - January 23, 2010
www.inglettgallery.com/exhibitions.php?id=93&year=2009

I had to dig up my six gun from the backyard for this. I last used it on Mel Ramos in 1975. But the Bruce High Quality Foundation’s show at Susan Inglett is the worst I’ve seen in many a moon, and that’s why I gotta get on their asses.

Richard Wright no title 2009.

Pop in Crises: Time Has Come Today
A review of 2 London shows: The 2009 Turner Prize winner Richard Wright (Tate Britain) and Pop Life: Art in a Material World (Tate Modern)

Viewing 2009 Turner Prize winner Richard Wright’s pareidolia-laced no title 2009 and Pop Life: Art in a Material World set in motion for me a set of considerations about the contemporary condition of art. Something prime is shifting.

I think I can sum it up by saying that the success of Wright’s large, but delicate, wall mural signaled to me the return of magical immersive thinking into mainstream art. This at the expense of the pop icon/logo celebrated in the Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit. Its gold, monochromatic (but kaleidoscopic) ground dominates over configuration. As a consequence, this visionary art produces an exciting all-over full fervor that needs to be interacted with imaginatively.