The obligatory nature of the Whitney Biennial adds a pressure to the visit and the curators seem oblivious to this. Although there is a good cross section of up and coming work, the show remains mostly routine and is certainly hard work. Counter to their claim of intergenerationality, there doesn't seem to be a lot of interaction or dialogue internally. The other claim that the artists are looking at the tragic and tumultuous past few years is also hard to believe. Apart from the vague nostalgia offered by younger artists, there is nothing that has political impact or the philosophical force to engage with the same intensity as the present cultural climate. Everything in the show is, well, just art. Rather than reaching outward, the artists lose themselves in self referencing insularity, and aesthetic obfuscation, all in pursuit of the so-called cutting edge. This is how the whole package come across, in any case. What you have is, much as it was two years ago, conceptual art merging with popular culture and myriad subcultures like the music scenes, computer game mania, and internet geeks, all fairly user friendly. Paul McCarthy leads the way from the roof. The granddaddy of a lot of daft concept based art, his inflatables, full of dark humor, seemed to work better last year when situated by the Tate Modern. Looking out over the Thames, there was some breathing space and an undeniable sense of profound irony. Younger artists' art-lite is refreshing if not totally compelling. One enjoys taking it less seriously and it adds well needed comic relief to a show crammed with "significance." In comparison to the previous Biennial, there are fewer definitive and uplifting moments, like Robert Lazzarini's skewed phone booth and Roxy Paine's amazing steel tree in Central Park which I still recall vividly. The best pieces this year are harder to decipher. The viewer must seek out the subtlety in the mass of works and make finer and finer judgments. It's simply too big a show for that kind of finessed activity. Film and video now mix better with traditional art and drawing certainly wins out over painting as actual film does over video. Installation is, as usual, ever present though most of these were rather standard, run of the mill affairs. The most flamboyant was, not surprisingly, the handsome psychedelic installation by ultra vivid astro focus, a Brazilian artist. Using an intermittant light-show to change the color of the funky illustrative wall graphics was a simple and powerful visual effect. Of course, the down side of eye-popping work like this is that it makes it hard to look at mere painting afterwards. Continuing on that poppy theme, Virgil Marti's singular aesthetic was enough to warrant attention. His evocation of the decorative side of the seventies brings to mind mirrored dance clubs and includes a satisfying morbidity. Importantly, the piece speaks to other work in the show that also pulled from the past and this sort of dialogue was rare in the show. Next door, Cory Arcangel's hacked computer games are both high tech and low. In his piece, Super Mario Clouds, a subtle programming intervention causes the clouds to pass across a large screen. They convey the sad notion that everything we love is becoming obsolete. Each generation to it's own deconstructions. Another highlight is Jeremy Blake's digital animation piece, Reading Ossie Clark which is a compelling montage. Its "in-yer-face" graphic attitude and slick use of multiple media had an unavoidable contemporary feel. Raymond Pettibone's inclusion underscores the insistence of comparing old and new artists. He has been highly influential on younger artists and launched a thousand illustrative copy cats but his work isn't needed here to anchor the newest work. Robert Longo is there for a similar reason. The same goes for juxtapositioning David Hockney next to Elizabeth Peyton. This is one of these pointless examples of talking across generations. Placing the established artist with the emerging (is Peyton emerging?) is an obvious attempt to contextualize the new work and give it more historical resonance. This may or may not be a flaw but it is curatorial overplaying and an example that art history seems to meaninglessly repeat itself. Isn't there work being made that has no connection with the past? It is true that the neo-conceptual work borrowing widely from the 60 and 70's is now the accepted norm but the art world tendency is to build up these associations until the situation borders on delusional; the preoccupation with assigning underlying significance. The difference between watching time based work (usually in dark spaces) as opposed to viewing conventional work presents a problematic dichotomy and the drawing and painting naturally loses out. Though the films are more noticeably accessible this year, they dominate because they are more compelling. Of course, stopping to sit and watch continually sets up a sort of stop-start "piece hopping" which becomes the viewing norm. Other drawbacks in film scheduling cause disappointment. Be warned. Eve Sussman's 89 seconds at Alcazar is not shown on Wednesdays! Her elaborate video reenactment of the Velasquez painting, Las Meninas, looked to be a fascinating glimpse of how we envision and mediate famous works of past art. Standing in line to see Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kusama was a bit like Disney land. In order to see the piece we were lined up while the guard counted 20 seconds on her fingers. To see this work properly one needed a leisurely stay. All in all, the widely varying sensibilities in the show never quite come together within the assigned themes and the formal diversity is never directly addressed. Instead the curators play it safe behind all the activities and latch meaning on top after the fact to links things up. It would be nice if these sensibilities were set up to argue rather than meld into inconsequence or worse, thematic illusion. Perhaps it is the insular channels the curating world uses for discovering "new" art that leaves no room for surprises. Conceptual borrowings apart, they really don't succeed in bridging the strong generational divisions and any gestures to move outside of the confines of "art" or redefine it end up with a co-option and return to a global sameness. Perhaps the days of individualist art as art are numbered.
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