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Surveying the critics
Sunday, January 30, 2000 By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic
Critical response to the 1999 Carnegie International has been a mixed bag. While some major newspapers and art magazines have yet to weigh in, those that have credit curator Madeleine Grynsztejn for her thematic approach - which gives some form to far-ranging contemporary art styles and mediums - while expressing frustration with the problems inherent in the escalating number of international survey shows that feature the same starring casts.
It's true that Pittsburgh and Venice, as originators of such survey shows, were the major players defining the state of contemporary art in the first half of the century. The International and the Venice Biennale have been somewhat diluted by the art world's rush to establish survey shows in such places as Istanbul, Johannesburg and Kwangju, Korea. However, it's disingenuous (and perhaps overinflated) to insinuate that the only audience for such exhibitions spends its days jetting from one to another, presumably between the sauna massages and snorts of juiced wheat sprouts that give them the energy to maintain such a pace.
For specific critiques, the critics themselves homed in on a surprisingly small percentage of the 41 artists represented in the exhibition. Brazilian Ernesto Neto's stretch fabric, interactive installation captured the imagination of most, as did New Yorker Sarah Sze's fanciful gallery-sized construction of painstakingly assembled everyday objects.
Another often cited was deceased German artist Martin Kippenberger, whose large found-object installation, inspired by the 1927 novel "The Happy Ending of Franz Kafka's 'Amerika,' " fills the Hall of Sculpture.
After the flap between New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, most seem to have felt compelled to comment on Briton Chris Ofili's work, though it often appears to be forced.
The inclusion of paintings - which have been noticeably absent in similar recent exhibitions - was a source of joy and relief to most critics, although the selection wasn't necessarily so. New Yorker John Currin's nudes came off as a favorite.
Receiving the most attention among the video works were the strong presentations of South African William Kentridge, winner of the $10,000 Carnegie Prize, and New Yorker Shirin Neshat, formerly of Iran. Both film entrants - Swede Ann-Sofi Siden and hot art world figure Matthew Barney of New York - received deserved mention.
While most critics acknowledged the predominance of video and film, and several commented on individual works, no one seemed to have strong feelings one way or another about Grynsztejn's decision to feature so many, or her observation that video had reached a "mini golden age," though that remark was frequently cited.
As may be predicted, opinion varied widely, frequently on the same artwork. Following are excepts from some critics' reviews:
?Roberta Smith, The New York Times: "[The Carnegie International] ... confirms what was evident at the Venice Biennale last summer: The norm for the big, international survey has become a kind of institutionalized, make-nice subversiveness, often expressed in installation-art form that catches the viewer briefly in its headlights through some combination of political correctness, environmental scale and/or dazzling technological effects. But the thrill is always finite, comprehensible and either fun or morally uplifting, digestible and quickly gone."
She credited the International with attempting to "depart from this norm," most notably by showing artists beyond the "usual suspects" and "most wondrous of all" giving "a lot of space to painting. It is the first of these shows in several years to acknowledge painting as part of the conversation in the new global art world." But, it "still feels surprisingly safe, predictable and familiar."
The two works that she said make the strongest impression are Kippenberger's, which "evokes a riotous, energetically hand-made painting as well as an office full of lunatic bureaucrats," and Siden's, "a 19-minute film so complex, compressed and resonant that it has the impact of a feature and should probably be nominated for some kind of Academy Award."
On the negative side, South African Kendell Geers' horrific video and scaffolding is cited as a "prime example of the comprehensible finiteness that characterizes the works here." And she said Neshat's "vague narrative" finds the artist "resuming the tiresome and simplistic narcissism that characterized her early work" by "staring meaningfully into the camera for minutes on end." Smith also says Sze's installation falls victim to success, listed among outstanding works that become "dogged by familiarity" when the artist appears in too many global surveys.
?Christopher Knight, the Los Angeles Times: "The availability of cheap international travel, the huge expansion of the contemporary art world, the recent emergence of art exhibitions as a common form of mass entertainment and the steadily accelerating speed of communications have conspired to create a wonderfully peculiar paradox: Globalism is rendering the Carnegie International local. The show is now a distinctly regional event. If you're in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, by all means see it." Knight applauds the high percentage of work that is "challenging, satisfying and would likely reward sustained viewing."
However, he said the show contains no surprises, which itself is not surprising, and that the curator's thematic claims "conform to prevailing institutional norms. If you follow contemporary art, missing the Carnegie isn't likely to matter much."
Knight called Kentridge's film an "ambiguous narrative of loss and renewal with the visceral, shape-shifting quality of an anxiety-ridden dream," having suggestions of Goya and Max Beckmann." Further, "Awarding the Carnegie Prize to a filmmaker underscores the theatrical punch now expected of the genre [surveys]."
Of the paintings, he found Currin's "extravagantly impossible nudes" and Belgian Luc Tuymans' "spare and strangely haunted essays in painterly faith" especially compelling.
He said Sze's "magnificent construction ... seems determined to colonize the entire museum," and that Ann Hamilton "rebounds" from a poorly received installation in Venice with a "poignant extravaganza."
?Katy Siegel, Artforum International: While Siegel also lamented the way the large survey exhibition "anesthetizes even the best-chosen art," she wrote that "the Carnegie clearly succeeds in its mission, which is not to surprise the art-world insider but to show an interested public what art looks like today. And even for someone familiar with much of the work, the exhibition presents a good opportunity to stop and think."
She found significance in the realization, by artists and critics, that direction is not so easily defined because it's "more complicated than anyone thought. ... What currently feels like a moment of historical indecision is really a pause taken to qualify many heavily subscribed beliefs, the oversimplifications of the past. This may not make for good manifestos (or easy criticism)," but for those who can tolerate it, "the possibilities expand."
She found example of this pause in the lobby, "the best part of the show," with Californian Diane Thater's "atmospheric video projection," New Yorker Alex Katz's "flat, icy painting," and Dane Olafur Eliasson's "bluntly phenomenological sculpture," among others. The latter, her favorite, is a "heart-throbbing romantic landscape ... that combines the natural and the industrial in a way peculiarly appropriate to Pittsburgh. ... When blunt physical fact achieves this kind of lyricism, it is something to see."
Ofili, Barney and Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall (whose work also appeared in the Post-Gazette) are given as examples of "the reassertion of the artist's presence" as a "generating agent of art." And she called Canadian Janet Cardiff's Carnegie Library participatory work "spectacular," the story told through headphones "deeply disorienting and involving." In Barney's and Siden's hands, "the films [a relatively new medium] themselves are clearly art."
She thought the painting was thin, though she appreciated Katz. But she said Edward Ruscha "looks oddly affectless," Laura Owens - like Ruscha, from L.A. -uses "spacey gimmicks," and Tuymans "puts in a particularly wan appearance," making Currin "look hot and heavy."
?Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland): "Contemporary art isn't supposed to be easy. But so many exhibitions these days are so larded with arcane theories that you need a graduate degree to get the gist. Either that or they shock viewers with hot-button thrills. This year's Carnegie International ... is neither shockfest nor graduate seminar. It's just plain terrific.
"The show is big, energetic and optimistic. It sends you away feeling elated about the creative possibilities of the new century. And it's not afraid of beauty. For my money, it's the best big survey of contemporary art this season."
?Blake Gopnik, The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada): "To cognoscenti, the artists chosen for this show verge on safe bets, and the Carnegie curators come off as herd-followers rather than leaders of the pack," but it gives North Americans a chance to see work they may only have heard of. The art, he says, is "often deeply original, and yet somehow predictable in its very newness," a quality that he fears distracts the viewer from "thoughtful contemplation."
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