After breakfast and dish with Philip, in town for the day, at Florent, Michelle, BC and I checked out the Whitney Biennial yesterday. It was the worst art experience I’ve ever had. Day for Night is the title of the exhibition, appropriate for a show of childish effluvia masquerading as works of social and political significance. We started at the top and worked our way down, physically and metaphorically. By the time we got to the lower level, hoping there might be something, anything to take away, we just looked at each other and in unison said, “How sad.” Most of the work was hung in ways that affected neighboring art significantly, detracting from the artist’s intent, and some pieces that needed distance to even understand were hung with no room to step back. There were a few high points, like Rodney Graham’s projected image of a rotating chandelier, and Franceso Vezzoli’s hilarious trailer of the “remake” of Gore Vidal’s Caligula, but really, how sad that there are curators out there who think this is what’s happening in American art.
Later we met up with some friends, Bev and Donna, for dinner at Cafe Loup on W. 13th. This guy walked in who looked just like Cornel West, and then walked up to Donna and gave her a big kiss and said hi to us. “That was Cornel West,” Donna told us. Donna’s a film editor, and Bev is a photographer. They’re bright, fun dinner companions with many tales and many charms.