The 2014 Whitney Biennial was  excoriated as “BS” by the Huffington Post, Even the BBC called the show “confounding and exasperating.”  It points out that the  the 77th edition of the Whitney Biennial begins with a question, asked at the very start of the text that greets visitors: “What is contemporary art in the United States now?” After seeing the work of 103 artists and groups on display here, a BBC critic suggests, “you might not be any closer to answering that enquiry.”

Because I had only a few hours to spare,   friends told me not to bother with anything but the exhibits on the fourth floor. But when I arrived at the museum, a tour of the third floor was about to start so I hopped on board. I’m glad I did.

Docent Janice Lieberman explained that the third floor exhibit, curated by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at the Museum of Modern Art, was meant to show transitions, the blurring of boundaries, changing concepts of internal and external, of gender and sexuality, of political and geographical economy and environment, and the interplay of images and text embodied in art. “What’s an artist, what is art is up for grabs,” she said. “We’re living in a strange time–the disappearing plane off Maylasia, for example, and the shipwreck off Korea.”  She pointed out that it’s a time of transition for the Whitney itself, because the current Breuer Building, built in 1966, will close this summer, and the museum will move to a new highrise at the tip of Manhattan,”

Lieberman explained all of the above in the hallway off the elevator of the 3rd floor, where work by Ken Okiishi is displayed on screens resembling large ipods–on which the artist superimposed digital images on old video,then smeared the screen with what looked to me like finger paint. As Okiishi explained to Interview Magazine:  “I had already been making straight video works, and then I asked, ‘What if I move even further outside of the screen and work on top of the screen?” According to Lieberman, museum visitors often take photos of this work. thus further blurring boundaries by becoming a part of the work. I dutifully took a photo (top left) but to be honest, was not blown away by these. .   The New England Puritan in me was boggled by photos of Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst, a man and a woman who “fell for each other,” as they each switched gender.  Disconcerting and meant to be. I could have lived without the photo of their bare behinds, each with a band aid covering the site of a hormone injection. 

“Meh” to Canopy Canopy Canopy: .com–the work of a collaborative group interested in the history of objects and collections: showing original wooden stand, a reproduction, though others in my tour group were quite impressed by the 3-d printed version o the same.

At one point, when we were standing in front of a workbench amidst sand, tools and other objects, Lieberman said, frankly, “I don’t get this,” I’m not sure if it was she or someone in our group who suggested it was a reference to environmental change. Soon after that, Lieberman warned us that the exhibit gets “stranger and stranger.”

“The American Dream,”  for example, is a collection of paintings by Keith Mayerson, who, Lieberman explained, is a psychoanalyst’s son whose dreams were  to show his work in the Whitney–and  to come out as gay. As described on the Whitney Website, “The salon-style installation includes images of Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull, Abraham Lincoln, and others, and links these stories to those of the nation and of Mayerson.  Paintings of Superman and popular musicians such as Marvin Gaye and the Beatles are juxtaposed with depictions of the artist as a child with his family…and of Mayerson with his husband, Andrew Madrid.”  The beautifully composed paintings, with striking brush strokes, hang close together on walls from floor to ceiling. More power to Meyerson and his dream, I say. I  also say that it was not MY dream to look up and see a large painting of  actor James  Dean, in the nude, masturbating.

Less vibrant, less provocative, are hats, placed on the floor as islands on a piece of cloth, meant,  to show that New York City is no longer the center of the art world–and that the US is now part of the Pacific Rim. .Another set of three attached hats  is used in performance art to show, when worn by  three people, what it’s like to try to move anything politically, Lieberman explained.

I found the painting, drawing and tapestry of 89-year-old Lebanese poet Etel Adnan quite inspiring. Adnan, who now lives in California,”  makes “accordion-fold books, or leporellos, that meld visual and verbal observation, fusing the artist’s parallel practices in painting and writing as she transcribes poems and records unfolding landscapes and urban spaces,” .according to the Whitney writeup.

Before we entered the last room in the 3rd floor exhibit, Lieberman said that, at first, she’d found its contents shocking. ” I couldn’t believe I’d ever actually show it to people,”  filled as it was, with images conveying violence and sex.  In fact, she added, the museum  considered putting a warning sign in front of the doorway. Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard, “goes to the extreme to show the extreme.It’s an example of an artist going to the top to jolt you.” Then, she shrugged. “People love it,” she said. And in we went. The large room  was crowded with museum visitors and mannequins standing or sprawled on couches and chairs, amidst mobiles, hanging art, and stuff strewn all over the place–so chaotically that I couldn’t focus.  When I heard someone exclaim to a friend,  “Look at this,”  I did so. She was holding up a pair of stuffed, beachball sized gonads hanging at either end of a long string.

I decided it was time to leave, thanked Lieberman for her frankness and humor, and asked if I could quote her in this piece. “Yes,” she replied. Then she  suggested mentioning that, in “real life”, she’s a psychoanalyst –clearly the perfect qualification for guiding people through this show.

Incidentally, I did also visit the fourth floor, curated by Michelle Grabner, an artist and Professor in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Grabner’s stated goal was to “develop a curriculum that presents identifiable themes… that are currently established in the textures of contemporary aesthetic, political, and economic realities.” She prioritized “contemporary abstract painting by women; materiality and affect theory; and art as strategy—in other words, conceptual practices oriented toward criticality.”

I found the work she chose more accessible and understandable but far less provocative than the work shown on the third floor. I liked Sheila Hicks “Pillar of Inquiry.” The work of the 80-year-old Nebraska artist melds the weaver’s craft and fine art. (Photo, left,by Bill Orcut)t. Was also struck by Sterling Ruby’s large, colorful ceramic vessels filled with remnants of earlier works that he had deemed failures or which had accidentally blown up during firing” As explained on the Whitney Website, the finished works contain notions of archaeological excavation, reanimating his own objects exhumed from the past into new, living forms.  I did wonder if the docent leading the fourth-floor tour I was kidding when she told us Grabner wanted to award “best-in-how” to a “12×12″or so z-shaped- sculpture coated to look like foam rubber– on a pedastal, with a string pulled through it.

I was sorry to miss Grabner’s selections of women’s abstract expressionists–and also the second exhibit floor, chosen  by Anthony Elms, Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.

Donna De Salvo, Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs at the Whitney, noted: “Together, the 103 participants offer one of the broadest and most diverse takes on art in the United States that the Whitney has offered in many years.”

While many critics dumped on the show as a whole, I  thought it was fun.

The Biennial runs through May 25, 2014.

–Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is a writer, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm in Kendall Square. Cambridge.

The Cambridge Art Association’s 13^th National Prize Show,will open May 13, CAA announced today. The show will exhibit the work of 82 artists chosen by Dr. James Welu, Director Emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum from among 383 artists from 13 states.  Prize winners, include artists from Lexington, Belmont, Duxbury, Lexington Providence, Roslindale, Providence, and West Yarmouth.

The show will run  through June 26, 2014, at both the Kathryn Schultz Gallery (25 Lowell Street, Cambridge) and the University Place Gallery (124 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge).  An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 16, 6-8pm, in both galleries.

The prizewinners are:

Best in Show: Zoe Perry-Wood (Lexington, MA)

Mixed Media Prize: Warren Croce (Belmont, MA)

Photography Prize: Dorothy Pilla (Duxbury, MA)

Painting Prize: Wilson Hunt, Jr. (Roslindale, MA)

Sculpture/3D Prize: Jesse Thompson (Providence, RI)

Work on Paper Prize: Carol Flax (West Yarmouth, MA)

Welu, who selected  the exhibitors and the award-winners said: “Jurying the National Prize Show was exciting and challenging–exciting to see such a wide range of art from across the country, but challenging to narrow a field of over a thousand entries to an exhibition of about 85 works.”

In jurying the show,  Welu  focused on  visual impact and originality with the goal of representing the variety of media that was submitted, he said.  “I was particularly attentive to the artists’ choice and use of medium for expressing the subject of their work. It was reassuring to see so many fresh and innovative approaches to a number of traditional subjects.” Welu said he was also impressed by the number of outstanding abstract paintings.

Previous jurors have included: Toby Kamps (Menil Collection) Malcolm Rogers (MFA, Boston); Clara Kim (Senior Curator, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis); Joseph Thompson (Director, MassMoCA); Lisa Dennison (Guggenheim); Marc Pacter (Director, National Portrait Gallery); Robert Fitzpatrick (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago), among others.

–Anita M. Harris
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA. Anita Harris is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, the forthcoming Ithaca Diaries–and managing director of the Harris Communications Group.

Spending a day out of Cambridge?  If you wish you were in Paris but can only make it to New York -– take your dreams to the Met and see  “Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris” and “Paris as Muse: Photography 1840s-1930s,”  (both through May 4) and “The Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux” (through May 26)

[Rue de Constantine]
Charles Marville (French, Paris 1813–1879 Paris)
Date: ca. 1865 Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative Dimensions: 27.3 x 36.8 cm (10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.) Classification: Photographs Credit Line Permission Requested: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1986 Accession Number: 1986.1141
)

 

CHARLES MARVILLE AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Fifth Avenue at East 79^th Street

“ A bittersweet meditation on the meaning of nostalgia and the evolution of urban centers”

The Met’s current exhibit of Paris street scenes by 19^th-century French photographer Charles Marville is a revelation of memory and awareness that rebuffs the notion of nostalgia.

Marville (1813-1879), the son of modest tradespeople, used various techniques to document the destruction and re-creation of Paris from the early 1850’s through the 1870’s.  From 1862 on, he was the official photographer of the city of Paris.

    The neighborhoods and buildings Marville captured in these wondrous and sad images are long gone, having made way for the Paris of Napoleon III and his chief architect and planner, Baron Georges-Eugène Hausmann.The gilded, historic Paris that many of us know — the Belle Epoque city of grand boulevards and the Palais Garnier — was born in Marville’s time.  Preservationism was evolving, as well, through the necessary process of repairing and cleaning such monuments as the great cathedral of Chartres, Notre Dame de Paris, and the Sainte-Chapelle.   

   The impulse to capture the past while obliterating it from sight is the beating heart of these photographs, which preserve the gritty city of Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème and Hugo’s Les Misérables     .In Marville’s photos, the outskirts of this Paris still look rural, even desolate.  Most of its streets appear to be empty, in part because images were taken very early in the day, but also because Marville’s exposures weren’t long enough to capture pedestrians and carriages in motion.  The rare figures here and there were actually posed within the frame by the artist.The “Hausmannization” of Paris, a cramped, crowded, and less romantic city than the one we imagine, began in the 1850’s under Emperor Napoleon III.   In addition to clearing medieval slums, upgrading sanitation, building parks, and restoring public monuments, the creation of boulevards and wider streets was intended to thwart those who might build and mount barricades, as they  had in the uprisings of 1830 and 1848.Marville recorded everything.  The old buildings, covered with advertising and all kinds of affiches  touting such modern conveniences as the folding umbrella.   The glass-covered, shop-lined alleys called passages, soon to be overshadowed by the department stores, les grand magasins.  The old industrial areas that dumped waste into the Seine tributaries and canals.  The timeless stares of tannery workers.The emerging wonders of the city are displayed here, too.   Hausmann’s “street furniture,” advertising kiosks, gas lamps, and – mais oui – public urinals, are respectfully and meticulously documented by Marville’s camera.  Most remarkable, perhaps, are the photographer’s views of the Avenue de l’Opéra as it was being built in the 1870’s.  Leading to the new Opéra, now called the Palais Garnier, the neighborhood is shown post-demolition and pre-construction, looking like nothing so much as a war zone.One of the final ironies is learning that Marville himself was a victim of Hausmann’s grand plan.  The photographer’s own studios were demolished and, during the 1871 uprising afterthe Franco-Prussian War, the Hôtel de Ville came under attack and much of its archival material – including Marville’s work as official photographer — was destroyed.

The exhibition is a bittersweet meditation on the meaning of nostalgia and the evolution of urban centers, whose periodic re-invention is both necessary and heartless.  Nostalgia is a construct; there are many pasts beyond the ones we recall and imagine.   The home that you long for may be just one of a cascade of images, seen for an instant in a series of receding mirrors.

–Rachel Yurman,  Cambridge, MA
© 2014

 

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations and marketing firm based in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA.

 

 

Our friends at 360 Chestnut  and BTW [Behind the Walls Magazine [] present: 

DOES YOUR HOUSE KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT YOU?
What:  Panel presentation: impact of home energy monitoring devices on privacy
When:  April 8^th, 2014
Where: Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway,Cambridge, MA Havana 5^th Floor
With:  Deborah Hurley, Jim Bride, Joseph Kolchisnky, Jason Hanna, and Daniel Hullah. Moderated by Alexandra Hall & Harold Simansky

Google’s recent acquisition of “smart thermostat maker NEST” was met with excitement in the home energy world—Google is finally recognizing the importance of energy efficiency. But now that the excitement has died down, people are realizing that Google will be in their homes more intimately than ever before. What does this mean for Americans’ already compromised privacy?

On April 8^th at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, 360Chestnut, Inc., and BTW: Behind the Walls magazine will host a panel discussion titled, “Does Your House Know Too Much About You?” Featuring experts on the home energy industry and “green” home improvement, the panel will address the looming issue of “smart” home monitoring devices: with sales expected to increase by 300% by 2020, are we giving up too much of privacy when embracing them?

The panel will include Deborah Hurley, a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science; Jim Bride, Founder and CEO of Energy Tariff Experts, LLC; Joseph Kolchinsky, Founder and Managing Director of OneVision Resources; Jason Hanna, Founder and CEO of Embue and Daniel Hullah, Partner and COO of Rockport Capital.  The moderators will be Harold Simansky, Founder and CEO of 360Chestnut Inc, and publisher of BTW: Behind The Walls and Alexandra Hall, Executive Producer of 360 Chestnut Inc, and Editor-in-Chief of BTW: Behind the Walls and COUPBoston will be the moderator.

The Panel:

Deborah Hurley is is a Fellow of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University and directed the Harvard University Information Infrastructure Project. At the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris, France, she was responsible for drafting, negotiation and adoption of the OECD Guidelines for the Security of Information Systems. Prior to joining the OECD, she practiced computer and intellectual property law in the United States. Hurley is Chair, Board of Directors, Electronic Privacy Information Center. She carried out a Fulbright study in Korea and is the author of Pole Star: Human Rights in the Information Society, and other publications. Hurley received the Namur Award of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) in recognition of outstanding contributions, with international impact, to awareness of social implications of information technology.

Joseph (Joey) Kolchinsky is the founder and Managing Director of OneVision Resources, a company that merges his curiosity with technology and passion for simplicity. The firm is redefining excellent service for the modern family, providing comprehensive and stress-free support to members across a growing range of needs including personal technology, smart home design, and health management. Joey lives in Boston with his wife Jennifer and daughter Penelope.

Jim Bride has over a decade of experience in the energy and environmental industries. He launched Energy Tariff Experts, LLC to address an unmet need in the marketplace for accurate utility rate and energy cost information to enable more informed energy investment decisions. Prior to Energy Tariff Experts, Jim spent over four years at EnerNOC, a pioneering Smart Grid firm.

Jason Hanna is the CEO & Founder of Embue; a Boston-based company developing connected heating & cooling controls for residential and small commercial application. Jason is also the Founder & Board Chairman of Greentown Labs, a Boston-area incubator for clean energy and hardware companies, now home to over 40 emerging start-ups. Jason previously worked in high technology and was responsible for building an organization that automated over $1B of transactions for EMC Corporation.

Daniel Hullah is a Partner and COO of RockPort Capital a multi-stage venture capital firm that invests in the areas of alternative and traditional energy, mobility, and sustainability.  Daniel is an active member of the screening and diligence team and has worked on multiple transactions in several key cleantech sectors most notably solar energy and green buildings.  One such company is EcoFacto, a leader in home energy management, providing user-friendly active management of residential and small commercial thermostats using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.

Harold Simansky (moderator)  is the founder of 360Chestnut.  Before 360Chestnut he was involved in the creation of Green Guild of MA, LLC, a full-service energy audit and home weatherization company that has helped over 1,000 Massachusetts home owners make their homes more energy efficient.  Earlier, Harold was the developer of one of the first green, LEED-certified residential buildings in the Boston-area.  Harold also has experience in the world of finance and as a consultant with Bain & Company. He is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Brandeis University.

Alexandra Hall (moderator) has more than ten years’ experience as a critic, lifestyle writer and editor of lifestyle topics in Boston and beyond. Alex has covered fashion, travel, entertainment, food, beauty, books, and the arts. She is currently editor-in-chief if COUP Boston, the city’s only luxury digital lifestyle magazine, and a freelance writer for publications including: Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, Town & Country, and Elle Decor.

360Chestnut is a multi-platform media company that helps consumers make their homes more sustainable, healthy and energy efficient.  This free-to-the-consumer service provides engaging experiences, expert information and personalized access to the 5000+ rebates that pay homeowners to be more energy efficient, as well as a connection to those who can do the work.  360Chestnut also published BTW: Behind the Walls magazine in partnership with the Wall Street Journal.

BTW: Behind the Walls is a quarterly magazine focused on healthy, sustainable and beautiful homes.  It is created in partnership with the Wall Street Journal and is distributed to more than 50,000 Wall Street Journal subscribers in MA, NH and VT.

COUPBoston is a multi-platform online magazine dedicated to all things innovative and forward thinking in Boston’s lifestyle community.

Info@360 Chestnut.com

–Anita M. Harris
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.
Anita Harris is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Womenand the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, publisher of New Cambridge Observer, and  managing director of the Harris Communications Group. HarrisCom provided editorial advice on the above writeup and is listed as a co-sponsor of the event.

Anita Harris speaking at the Lincoln, MA Library

Had fifteen seconds of fame on Friday, March 21, when I commented on Sheryl Sandberg’s Ban Bossy Campaign for PBS’s To the Contrary. The program, which airs nationally and on the Web, is public television’s all-female news analysis series–now in its 22nd season. You can view the program at http://www.pbs.org/to-the-contrary/watch/2885/contraception-cases;-ban-bossy;-congresswomen-and-leadership. 

My taped interview introduced a segment about Sheryl Sandberg’s campaign to expunge the “b” word (that would be “bossy”) from our vocabulary. I’d posted a New Cambridge Observer blog questioning whether the campaign will promote or harm good leadership among girls earlier in the week.
The program also covered the Obamacare Birth control mandate. Guests included:  Former Congresswomen Blanche Lincoln, Carol Moseley Braun, Connie Morella, Barbara Kennelly and Mary Bono. Panelists were Amy Siskind, The New Agenda; Kay Coles James, *resident, Gloucester Institute; Avis Jones DeWeever, NPR host, and Rina Shah, Republican strategist.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and Marketing firm based at the Cambridge Innovation Center, in Kendall Square, Cambridge. Anita Harris, HarrisCom’s Managing Director, is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity.  Broken Patterns is available at Amazon.com, Kindle.com, and at the Harvard Bookstore, in Harvard Square.

Anita M. Harris (Not to be confused with the Anita Harris who wrote two of the books used to illustrate my introduction).

Queen Elizabeth II and Philip Ramirez of the Harris Communications Group

Went to the British Consulate Tuesday morning  (June 4, 2013) expecting to hear the Right Hon. Jeremy Hunt, MP, the UK Secretary of State, speak about recent changes in the British health care system–but at the start of the session, Vice Consul Anne Avidon explained that Hunt had been called to Downing Street and that she’d done her best to replace him with someone of equal or higher rank. Avidon then pulled out a life-sized cardboard photo of the Queen–commenting that “she listens a lot but doesn’t say much.”

UK Boston HM Consul General Susie Kitchens and Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information, National Health Service Commissioning Board.

The levity continued as the Consulate team collected the results of a networking game, in which attendees had been handed scrabble letters to add to those of others at the event in order to form words related to health care. The winning word–Edata–brought five people Cadbury chocolate bars from England.

In a Q& A session with Consul General Susie Kitchens, the real speaker, Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information of  the UK’s National Health Service Commissioning Board,   outlined several components of what a Consulate publication describes as  “the most widespread changes in England’s National Health Service since its inception in 1948.”

One key change, effective since April 1, is that 80 percent of the UK healthcare budget (approximately $120B), has been “devolved” from the Department of Health to frontline clinicians. These clinicians form new Clinical Commissioning Groups and are responsible for designing, delivering, and paying for local health services.

Some other changes involve requiring doctors at various level to share treatment and mortality outcomes, increased patient participation in assessing their own care, and the digitization of all health care records by 2018.

The event was sponsored by UK Trade and Investment and the British American Business Council of New England.

–Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations and digital marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.