The Nation. - Department of Government at Cornell University

June 5,1995 The Nation. 805arriving not so much at a balanced as ata true representation of how things stood.There would be trade-offs, compromises,tensions, together with a fair distributionof competence, of enthusiasms, of interests.A better system might involve a networkof nominators together with a curatorialselection committee that wouldarrive at the final menu.It is far from clear, however, that theconsiderable methodological advantageof the curatorial team survives into theera of the single virtuoso curator. And inconsequence it is unclear what the form ofcriticism appropriate to this show shouldbe, for it is no longer transparent that theintention is to represent the state of art.At best it might be to present one readingof the state of that art which expressesthe tastes and interests of the single curatorwho chose it. And the response toany criticism can then consist in sayingthat, well, this is the way I see thlngs.These are the things that I like. This iswhat strikes me as interesting, or amusing,or important. And maybe this is thebest that, in a pluralistic art world, canbe hoped for. But this not only changesthe nature of the Biennial. It raises thequestion of why we should any longerhave Biennlals.It should be clear that what happenswhen one puts the next fifteen minutes ofart in the hands of a single curator 1s thatit is the single curator who enJoys thosefifteen minutes, since the criteria of selectionrefer inevltably back to that individual’staste. Even if the art world findsdelight in a work by Nancy Rubins, con-slsting in a large cloud of mattressestrussed together with a lot of cakes andsuspended from the ceiling by steel cables,it is the curator who is the ultimate recipientof that delight because he or she hasselected the artist and the work. Leave itto Klaus, the art world might murmur,knowing a blt about Klaus Kertess’stastes and preferences in art. But thesepredisposltions would be even betterknown to whoever selected him as curatorof the 1995 Biennial, and this suggestsa dlmension to the single-curator phenomenonI have so far not touched upon.I am not, let me emphasize, criticizingKertess’s tastes. I am, rather, concernedwith the institutional change that hasmade these central to this exh~bition.any readers will recall an episodeM made famous by a discussion of itin a widely read essay on existentialismby Jean-Paul Sartre. The philosopher wasapproached during the occupation by ayoung man with a dilemma. He wantedto join the resistance but that wouldmean abandonmg his aged mother, whowas altogether dependent upon him forher needs. He was torn between filial andpatriotic duty, and wanted to know whathe should do. Sartre’s answer was this:“You’re free-choose!” And then, in extenuationof what the philosopher recognizedas the seeming unhelpfulness of hisadvice, he told the young man that he hadto have known that this was the kind ofthing Sartre would say. Had he gone foradvice to the local priest, he would havegotten advice of a different sort. He had,in effect, chosen already in asking Sartrewhat to do. The same is true of exhibitions.We get the ones we want by askingthe curator we know is going to provideit. So in a certain sense, it is the directorwho chooses the exhibition. And that isvery different from charging a group ofcurators having presumably diverse agendaswith the task of picking a show thatwill be as representative as possible ofwhere things have been going in the visualarts over the previous two years.There can be little doubt that the 1993Biennial was a response to the desire, perhapsnever explicitly stated, to mount anTHE WOMEN OF VIETNAMON FORTY YEARS OF WARAN AMERICAN AMONGTHE VIETNAMESEFOREWORD BY GRACE PALEY“Humane, angry, lovlng, smart, relentless, sweet, brave, canng ....”TIM O’BRIEN, AUTHOR OF IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS“Vlvrd and eloquent Rare for ICS honest, scrvghtfonvard look at the ordlnarypeople we foughr and thelr accompllshmencs and suffenngs.”ffiMU5 &VIEWSI “Borton grves us the Vler Nam hldden from us durlng our war,Iforbldden even IO our unaglnatlon ....’Ii5 LARRY HFJNEMANN, AUTHOR OF PACO’S SromY@w‘‘’””a_IN BOOKSTORES NOW FROM VIKING &