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The irony of the Whitney Biennial is that it brings a muddled exhibit of contemporary art to the city that needs it least ... New Yorkers may not need the Biennial to have the opportunity to see strong contemporary art, but people in other cities do. One reason that contemporary art is outside America's common cultural conversation is that the best new art is only broadly and regularly accessible to people in four areas: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and in the Washington-to-New York corridor. So after the newly reconfigured exhibit debuts in New York, take the show on the road to four or five American cities that don't see a lot of contemporary art. Send the show to Boise, Idaho; Phoenix; Jackson, Miss.; and Detroit. Or Salt Lake City; San Antonio; and Omaha, Neb. Give it an eight-week run in each city. Combined with the New York installation, the show would have a yearlong shelf-life.
And don't just send the art on the road. Send the show's curator into those communities to talk about the Biennial and contemporary art. Have the show's curator talk at schools, libraries and other non-museum settings. Allow the passionate to share their passion. All too often, curators build shows and then sit back in their ivory-towers-by-Gehry, conversing only with the already converted. This is not completely illogical: Curators are as careerist as anyone else, so they most often talk about art to people who can advance their careers. Let the traveling Biennial change that. Make a curator's desire and ability to spread the gospel of contemporary art a key part of the job description.
Send some artists out on the road, too. As evidenced by the otherwise inexplicable success of magazines like Us Weekly, Americans want to feel like they have personal relationships with celebrities. Send Emily Jacir to Boise to talk about how the plight of Palestinians provides inspiration for her work. Send Julie Mehretu to Detroit to share the personal history from which her energy-filled paintings come.
- TYLER GREEN, "Hit the Road, Whitney," wall street journal March 30, 2004
posted March 30, 2004 in art. 20052003