The Nation. - Department of Government at Cornell University

806 The Nation. June 5. 1995SPEAK NO EVIL.SEE NO EVIL.HEAR NO EVIL,CounterpunchThe excltmg newsletler about power and evll In Wash-Ington. now Iolned by Alexander Cockburn“Badly needed ““Noarn Chornsky“Hlghly recommended ““Utne ReaderDon’l mlss these Iwlce-monlhly dlspalches Subscrlbenow1 1-year (22 Issues) $40 $25 low-IncomeCounterpunch (A), IPS. PO Box 18675. Washmgton,DC 20009Delightful 5-inch gold and black plasticemblem for car, refrigerator or fllecabmet, or 1-Inch metal lapel pln Ingold or silver color Only $9Send check to FISH, Dept. 20, Box26523, Colorado Sprmgs, CO 80936Credit card users can order by FAXor voice at 719-593-9227, or by E-mailat EvolveFISH@AOL comSLIP INTO SOMETHINGA LITTLE MORE POLITICALBack by popular demand! “The Natlon“ ISprmted on the front and “slnce 1865” on theback These 100% cotton T-shlrls come In3 styles black wlth whlte letterlng (M, L, XL),forest green wlth whlte lelterlng (M, L, XL)and whlte wlth red letterlng (M, L, XL) $11 95postpald, 3 or more, only $995 each Sendcheck or money order In U S currency to NatlonT-Shuts. 72 Fifth Avenue, New York. NY10011 (New York residents add sales’laxForelgn orders add 33% )exhibition of politically engaged art withstrong multlcultural credentials. No onecould claim that the kind of work chosenfor the exhibition was not being made,for of course it was. What anyone withthe slightest knowledge of the art worldcould claim, on the other hand, was thatthe work was not monolithically as politicalas its reflection in the medium ofthe Biennial pretended, and that the showwas in fact a curatorial decision to put onone of a particular kind. Here and there,of course, there were works that couldnot easily be thought of as politically engaged-PeterCampus’s impeccable butdull dlgitlzed photographs of leaves andbranches, for example. But these simplyunderscored what most of the critical establishmentperceived as the determinationof a new directorate, fresh from theInstitute of Contemporary Art, Boston,to show what it felt contemporary artought to be under the guise of the Whit-ney format, which had to that point beenmerely to show contemporary art as is. itBut by the same token, it is difficult toavoid the inference that Klaus Kertess waschosen because he would select an exhi-bition of a very different sort, as indeedhe has. Conservative paranoia has naturallyseen through what it takes to be disguises,into the political core of the exhibition;but to those unafflicted with thatorder of pathology, Kertess has chosenexactly the kind of show one is convincedhe was expected to. Kertess is a widely respectedrepresentative of the art world,with known tastes and a history of havingdiscovered and nurtured, as a dealer, anumber of first-rate talents. His adJunctconnection to the Whitney goes even furtherin distancing his show from the criticaldebacle of 1993. The Biennial of 1997will be the responsibility of Lisa Phillips,who was a member of the curatorial teamthat chose several of the Biennials in theperiod preceding Tom Armstrong’s 1990forced departure as director of the museumand David Ross’s appointment tothat position. And in the symbolic languageof curatorial appointments, thishas to be read as a gesture of further reassuranceto the art world, as well as anindication of returning to a period inwhich the Whitney did not, by takingupon itself the prerogative of moral andpolitical instruction, alienate itself fromIts constituency. No institution can thrive,let alone survive, that does not learnwhen it has moved too far in that direction.Whitney publicists have jocularlycharacterized the Biennial as “The showyou love to hate,” but that pre-emptive ef-fort at collusive jollity would sound increasinglyhollow in the face of shows ashateful as 1993’s was felt to be. In thissense Kertess has done what was wanted.No one hates the show, partly because itis so quirky and somehow personal thatthat would be tantamount to hating him.But everyone knows that it is no morerepresentative than the last Biennial, simplymore obviously idiosyncratic.Everyone knows thkBiennial is no morerepresentative than thelast, merely moreobviotlsly idiosyncratic.consider the case of painting, until relativelyrecent times the mainstay ofthe Biennials and the annuals beforethem, largely because what was going onin art was mainly painting. There werefive paintings in the 1993 show, chosen,one felt, through quantity and quality, todemonstrate the leftish thesis that paintinghad died. Painting had been demonizedthrough the seventies and, after anuncertain reprieve in the eighties, villainizedafresh as the chosen art-form of theoppressing class. There are by contrasttwenty-seven paintings in the 1995 show,and while Kertess’s choices are at timeseccentric, no one can argue that the proportionof painting to other forms of arthas actually quadrupled in the interveningtwo years. What the difference innumbers as well as kind shows is thatKertess really likes painting, and has specialtastes in it. He likes quiet, austerepaintings like those of Agnes Martin andBrice Marden, or he likes really funkypaintings like those of nobody you haveever heard of, but that, like jokes, arelikely to be funnier to some than others.Or take the difference in catalogues.The 1993 catalogue featured an essay bythe writer Homi Bhabha, a well-meaningobscurantist who almost exemplifiesthrough the amiable murkiness of hisprose the difficulty of one culture understandinganother. Colonialism was butone of the kinds of abuse expressed inthe texts and in the gathered works. Thefront matter of Kertess’s book couldhardly be more different. After his ownwhimsical preface, in which he offers theunexceptionable thesis that all art is met-