Can the Whitney Biennial foster a NEW art movement?

Whitney Biennial Goes Global "For 70 years, the sprawling Whitney Biennial exhibition of contemporary art has prided itself on its insistence on an American point of view. But as times and tastes change and art world boundaries dissolve, the 2006 biennial's two foreign-born curators have ventured across the Atlantic. Not content with just recording what's happening in contemporary art around the United States, the curators have scoured artists' studios in art capitals like Milan, London, Paris and Berlin, a first for Whitney Biennial curators... Given the proliferation of large art fairs all over the world and the speed by which images travel across the Internet, the curators said they wanted to make this biennial something more than a rambling show of new art." The New York Times 11/30/05

The Whitney Biennial is the ultimate goal for serious American artists. Unfortunately, the event is so intimidating that many never even apply. But can the curators of the Whitney Biennial set aside egos and titles long enough to lay the ground work for the next art movement? Rather than simply search for the most outrageous, can they work together to discover unacquainted artists working through similiar ideas and styles.

When curators are not artists. When critics are not patrons. Can there be enough cohesion to bind together a group of artists or styles or ideas to form a movement? In 2006, we will discover if the new direction of the event's most recent curators is true or simply a stunt. - DN