Art Review: Whitney Biennial — The Good, the Awful, the Non-Art, and the Motherly

Last week, I visited, for the 20th or more time, the always much-anticipated Whitney Biennial — wild and wacky, ponderous and beguiling, puzzling, depressing, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes infuriating. From Biennial to Biennial, the balance shifts. What is the Biennial, first of all? The Whitney says it’s the pulse of contemporary American art taken nationwide. This cycle’s Biennial — it doesn’t have a title — is murkier and more uneven than outright bad. Goodness, I thought, the curators made 300 studio visits to artists all across America, and this is what they found? Now, I’d just come from the IFPDA annual show of prints and drawings at the Armory, so I had recently seen lots and lots of wonderful art.

Let’s alternate between high and low points, accentuating the positive first. I did discover, with effort, some very appealing, surprising threads.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Last week, I visited, for the 20th or more time, the always much-anticipated Whitney Biennial — wild and wacky, ponderous and beguiling, puzzling, depressing, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes infuriating. From Biennial to Biennial, the balance shifts. What is the Biennial, first of all? The Whitney says it’s the pulse of contemporary American art taken nationwide. This cycle’s Biennial — it doesn’t have a title — is murkier and more uneven than outright bad. Goodness, I thought, the curators made 300 studio visits to artists all across America, and this is what they found? Now, I’d just come from the IFPDA annual show of prints and drawings at the Armory, so I had recently seen lots and lots of wonderful art.

Let’s alternate between high and low points, accentuating the positive first. I did discover, with effort, some very appealing, surprising threads.