February 24, 2001
Issue No.15
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Table of Contents

Media/Metaphor
The 46^th Biennial Exhibition
The Corcoran Gallery of Art
December 9 through March 5

Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries
The National Gallery of Art

Media/Metaphor
The 46^th Biennial Exhibition
The Corcoran Gallery of Art

While Washington, D.C. does indeed have a stunning range of spectacular museums, most of which are sited along an enormous central mall, it is a city in which to experience Old Masters, V-2 Rockets, Rare Documents, Old Glory, Dinosaur Bones, and George Washington’s wooden teeth. Anything that is but cutting edge contemporary art. Contemporary museums and curators fight the good fight, overall, but this is a generally conservative culture dominated by the shadow of Congress. The Clintons were hardly known as champions of high culture, and one may anticipate even less under the current Republican administration of W and friends.

Take the Corcoran Gallery of Art, for example, with its mandate for American art much like that of the Whitney Museum in New York. There the similarity ends. A case in point, their recent and current Biennial exhibitions. Nobody liked last year’s Whitney Biennial. So, what else is new. By contrast, the current Corcoran Biennial, a series that started more than 90 years ago, has always been viewed as somewhat conservative particularly with its insistence on concentrating on painting. They have parted from that formula this time, allowing in a lot of photography, video and installation work. That’s the hard news. But compared to last year’s Whitney Biennial this looks awful safe and retro. Much of the work by the 15 artists in this show has that feeling of déjà vu all over again.

There is the sense that the exhibition’s curator, Philip Brookman, spent a few weekends running around Chelsea and Soho and the rest of the time flipping through back issues of Art Forum and Art in America. While generally pleasing to the eye this show failed to get under my skin, which is what Biennials such as the Whitney are designed to do. This is, after all, the museum that started the ball of censorship rolling by canceling the Mapplethorpe show a few years back.

The first pair of galleries on the main floor sets the pace of what to expect from this exhibition. First we encounter more angst and ennui in the enervating daily diary of Nan Goldin who appears to be slogging along through the world’s most prolonged documented adolescence. Her friends make out as if she isn’t there. Perhaps, the truth is, she really isn’t. There that is. Or all there. Or whatever. What a wasted life. How boring. From there we amble on to that mistress of ultra chic bimbosity, Miss Cupie Doll 2001, Lisa Yuskavage. The art world likes to talk about how well she paints. Big deal. These are Playboy cartoons, vintage 1960s, raised to the epic level of high art. Just imagine these on the walls of the homes of the rich and famous. Actually, these don’t seem like the best examples of her work. I find John Currin and Delia Brown, as far as pinups and sendups go, more compelling and edgy.

Speaking of painting, however, here is where the Corcoran Biennial is at its best and worst. A room of small Postcards from Camp, by Ben Sakoguchi, was absolutely riveting. These ersatz postcards present an array of images from a dark moment in American history; the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two. The American born artist spent his childhood years in a camp in Poston, Arizona. The images, in bright chromocolors are created from family snapshots and historic documents. They convey an ironic, "having a wonderful time, wish you were here," feeling. The abstract, expressive swirly and whirly paintings by David Reed, however, make little sense in this mix.

The rest of the show seems to be dominated by video and photography, just like a Whitney or Chelsea show. Victor Burgin has created a slow moving looping panorama of the painting galleries of the Corcoran juxtaposed by a swoop around a room in the infamous Watergate. Sharon Daniel has made an interactive internet site for the show that people can play with through computer terminals, or surf at home. Gary Hill seems to be slamming himself against a wall and blanking out. Michal Rovner has taken a huge gallery to play out on three screens a slow drama of cold war. Something about Israelis and Russians. While Jennifer Steinkamp and Jimmy Johnson have transformed a rotunda into a playful mirage of electronic music and dancing ribbons.

This time Vik Muniz has laid off the chocolate syrup. But he has gone through several generations to give us large, black and white, ben day dotted, broken up images of famous people. A huge wall of them. Chuck Close presents a large number of small daguerreotype images of heads and tails of his famous and not so friends. He created these in collaboration with Jerry Spangoli. This oldest of all forms of photography is remarkable for its precise detail and lush tonal range. But, we entirely didn’t need the oh so typical, large, blotchy, pseudo Seurat portrait of Jasper Johns. We know all about that. A Biennial is supposed to present new work and experimental ideas.

Which is why the selection of new works by Shimon Attie was so successful. We were spared more of his musings on the Holocaust. This time he has focused his social concerns on his own battle with diabetes. The photo images are fascinating meditations on sugar and blood accompanied by a powerful, three screen video that surrounds us with mountains of crunching and lethal white processed sugar.

In attempting to reinvent herself, alas, Lorna Simpson has been less successful. Her recent attempts at narrative videos have put me to sleep. Now she wants to make me think long and hard about a full scale, segmented, diptych of theater seats. There is a small text that reads, "They watched and watched and watched." Yeah, right. Oh, and, Y. David Chung. Does video installations. So, I think that covers everyone.

Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries
The National Gallery of Art

As Cherry Blossom Time rapidly approaches, plan a trip to Washington for no other reason than to tour the recently opened exhibition focusing on the enormous influence of photographer/ publisher/ gallerist, Alfred Stieglitz.

Even before the famous Armory Show of 1913, he was presenting the best and most progressive work of European modernists in his tiny New York spaces. Considering that there simply were no avant-garde galleries in America at the time, his Gallery 291, on Fifth Avenue, had an influence on American art and culture all out of proportion to its minuscule scale. Stieglitz, a man of some but relatively moderate means, was able to support and display a handful of the most progressive artists of his generation: Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, and Charles Demuth.

This exhibition assembles some of the signature masterpieces by this first generation of American modernists, including a range of works by Stieglitz himself. These are images that will be familiar from textbooks. Not every masterpiece is here, for example, the O’Keeffe, Cows Head in Red White and Blue, but why quibble. The MFA, for example, has loaned the Dove masterpiece, That Red One, from its Lane Collection.

It is remarkable to what extent Stieglitz got it right. In hindsight, O’Keeffe, Hartley, Dove and Demuth look terrific. Marin. Well, for me personally, I don’t think so. But, the Hartley German Military Series, from WW1, they are some of the greatest paintings of their time being produced anywhere in the world. Not just America. And O’Keeffe, she seems to just look better all the time.

We also know by now, chapter and verse, that Stieglitz was a right peculiar sortah fellow. He had an odd way of doing business. And these artists were often at his mercy for their monthly stipends. It is simply remarkable that he supported them. But he also seems to have them dance. It adds curious dimension and humanity to a great but flawed genius. And makes us think about the tough times of his artists. When America, well, just didn’t give a damn.

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