The other hallmark is
an emphasis on the ominous and disorienting. Josephine Meckseper's video of Minneapolis's Mall of America casts the mall as a
vast, forbidding, endless temple of materialism, set to a discomforting
soundtrack. James Casebere depicted another common feature of the American landscape, the
suburban housing development, as an alien locale, with strangely lit photos of
homes that he constructed as models.
Curtis Mann's distortions of photos taken during the 2006 conflict between
Israel and Hezbollah were meant to cast the media's representation of war in
doubt. On the other hand, Nina Berman's photos of former Marine Sergeant Ty Ziegel, severely disfigured
as the result of a suicide bombing in Iraq, portray the real cost of war–and
cause one to reflect on the price of a war prosecuted for dubious rationales by
those who avoided military action in their youth.
In the video
"Patron" by Marianne Vitale, the artist stared straight ahead and obsessively and loudly
demanded that the viewers take certain absurd actions, seemingly parodying both
authoritarianism and artistic movements. One exception to the focus on
disorientation and provocation was the work of Suzan Frecon, whose large, abstract, contemplative shapes recall the
minimalist paintings of Ellsworth Kelly.
The 2010 Whitney
Biennial is on view through May 30, 2010. For further information, call (212)
570-3600 or visit www.whitney.org.
In the following video, curator Francesco Bonami discusses the exhibition:
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