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First, massive congratulations to the Whitney.
Over half of the 75 participants are women, and over half are artists of color.
The curators, Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta, are 35 and 46, respectively.
This piece could fly over the White House.
There are even a couple of archaic tool-makers to push the clock all the way back.
When the art here works, it isnt 95 percent reliant on obscurant wall labels.
Its enough that I left this Biennial hopeful about seeing new ideas of the poetic and subjective.
Nothing here will offend.
Political bona fides are all in order.
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The earnestness does have upside, though.
Nearly everything here is conspicuously handmade, pieced together with wire and tape.
Humble materials predominate (meshes, fabric, beads, etc.
Theres a real sense of the artists studio throughout.
Additionally, nothing here is overproduced or shiny or makes a spectacle of itself.
Its all the chaos of Trumpism and the End of the American Empire.
(It deserves a permanent public home.
Maybe Central Park?)
All the photography is strong.
The biggest overall weakness of this Biennial is painting.
This is a big missed opportunity that sadly neglects the extraordinary liveliness now afoot in the medium.
This academic prejudice needs to end.
Donald Trumps full-page ad placed in all New York newspapers on May 1, 1989, is here too.
It called on the courts to revise the law so these minors could be put to death.
All of this has been coming for a long time, and now its here.
Shes on some sort of mission.
Many museums are this deep in the morally corrupt philanthropic mud.
But the video changed all that for me.
Its time to have this conversation about Kanders.
I walked into that darkened screening room thinking that calling for scalps wasnt an answer.
I left thinking,This guy has to fucking resign.
Yet look at the moral costs of giving all this an ethical pass.
Perhaps Kanderss exit might trigger all institutions to draw up guidelines.
Loss of millions notwithstanding, this is a train museums should want to get off of.
(The museum was completely aware of and endorses the inclusion.)
Then help make it happen.
