The Whitney Biennial

Every two years the Whitney Museum pulls together an exhibition that is a survey of contemporary American Art. The curators this year, Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockly, emphasized current societal and political concerns. I was skeptical that I would find work with mathematical references, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Christine Sun Kim series of charcoal drawings “Degrees of Deaf Rage” charts the personal frustration and anger at various situations. In order to express the range of emotions Kim uses the concept of geometric angles. Acute,right and obtuse angles become measuring tools to gauge the rage in different scenarios.”Degrees of Deaf Rage in the Art World” from 2018 illustrates the difficulties of a deaf artist navigating the art world.

This close up shows the “OBTUSE RAGE” of “VISITING ARTISTS WHO AREN’T COMFORTABLE WITH INTERPRETERS”. The artist is making schematic drawings to express personal and sociological angst using basic geometric forms familiar to everyone.
Agustina Woodgate’s installation “National Times”, 2016/2019 consists of a room with clocks lining the walls connected to the power grid, all showing he same time. This is the same set-up used in schools, factories and other buildings for over 100 years. One digital “master” clock sends the signal to all of the other analog “slave” clocks. This created uniformity through out the building and repetition in this gallery. The ever-present numerical time pressure is palpable in the room.

Upon closer inspection you notice the numbers on the slave clocks are being slowly erased. Woodgate has attached sandpaper to the backs of the hands of the clocks. The “master” clock will eventually be the only one showing the digits. By removing the numerals the pressure of time will be somehow eased. I feel this work expresses the way numbers especially when used to track time in a workplace can have an emotional negative connotation.

Susan Happersett

This year the Whitney Museum of American Art presents its 78th Biennial survey. I knew from media reports that the art selected heavily represented political and social current events. There was a wide cross section of themes including an emphasis on figural work, but there were two artists whose work dealt directly with geometric figures.

Matt Browning, untitled, 2016

Matt Brownings gridded wall sculptures were installed in small groupings through the two floors of exhibit. each grid of 26 cubes is hand carved from a single piece of wood forming an interlocking lattice work.

Brownings’ subject matter of the cubes relates to the perspective of minimalist geometric sculpture. His technique of painstakingly whittling the wood by hand takes the geometry to the unexpected realm of craft and folk art.

Larry Bell, “Pacific Red II”, 2017

Larry Bell’s laminated glass sculptures are installed on a roof terrace. Consisting of 6 large prisms featuring six foot by eight foot walls each enclosing a smaller six foot by four foot prism. The transparent nature of the material allows for a comparison of the proportions of the two sized boxes. All twelve have the same height but the interior forms are half as wide. The volume of the larger boxes are 4 times that of the interior boxes. I particularly like the way the sculptures are situated so that the viewer can see the surrounding buildings through the colored glass. The abstract geometry becomes part of the city scape.

Susan Happersett