Whitney Biennial 2012

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We are lucky that there are places like the Whitney collecting and displaying art that is thought provoking, conversational and conversational.  The Biennial is about artists.  Artists who are using their imagination to create works that represent something that have come from within them. 

Did I enjoy the Biennial?  Not really.  Do I get it?  Sure.  The show was curated to be not contemporary or modern but a statement of work that represents all the different mediums from video to collage to sculpture to performances etc that are not for the every day consumer of art. 

Personally art speaks to me aesthetically which is why I enjoy collecting.  I live among the works and I appreciate what each artist has created.  Many times, if I am lucky, I get to meet the artist and have even a stronger connection to the body of work that they have created.

After the Armory Show last week, we went to see the Hort Collection.  A private family collection that has been assembled of emerging artists for over the past twenty years.  Many of the pieces in their home were not something that I could necessarily live with like the Whitney show.  What I loved is that they opened their home to the world.  It was like walking through a museum which my guess is something that they have thought about opening one day. 

It is people like the Horts and the many boards of the Whitney who have collected art that might not be beautiful, per se, but work that forces everyone who sees it to think, ponder and wonder.  That is exatcly what Biennial is about.  Didn't visually enjoy it but am very glad I went. 

 

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    You and I agree on this.I search out art to tease my sensibilities forward.I collect icons like Bourke-White, Eisenstaedt, Haring, Lichtenstein and Close to make the walls that surround me both pleasing and inspiring.

  2. ellen

    It is nice that these people open their home but for me my thoughts are  that  it is a perfect opportunity  for criminals.  I am from the old school. I don’t care how sophisticated an alarm system someone has, if you show too much to strangers,  someone will get the wrong idea. Especially in a private home.My Mom was home during a robbery and it was very scary.  While the robbers were cleaning out the second floor my mother was coming up the stairs and then the robbers  were running down the stairs.  If they had a knife, they would have killed her.

  3. ellen

    meanwhile the new artists’s shows are fantastic. This past week many of the galleries here have wonderful exhibits….. but next week is Asian Week and I just love jade.

    1. Gotham Gal

      what are you favorite galleries in boston?

  4. ellen

    Depending on the exhibitions I like Beth Urdang, Barbara Krakow, Galerie D’Orsay, Axtelle, Martha Richardson,  especially Vose and now like to go to Harrison Ave. and just browse the area. We had ad20/21 a midcentury modern show this weekend and I wanted to go, but last week there was a major fire of a transformer and there were no lights in many parts of Back Bay for days so I did not go to the show.  Big problem for restaurants tooBoston is not New York or La.  I heard Honor Frasier had an excellent week in L.A. Love some of her exhibiting artists.  We are so limited here compared to New York but what you do in a big way, we do in a miniscule way. We have no Art Basel etc. but we plod along.I also love to go to the Rockport.  Not anything contemporary there but for me as a New Englander I love beaches and waves and rocky coasts. no motif’s#1’s though.

  5. rebeccastees

    I am very happy you are collecting again. 

    1. Gotham Gal

      me too!