Opening day at the Whitney Biennial and my first visit to the new location. All that I heard was true. The building is perfect for looking at art. The location is amazing and the restaurants are fab fab fab. Ate two meals there because we stayed all day. But I miss the old building. Even with the amazing vistas and the huge windows etc, the new location lacks the character of the Breuer building. But enough on that and no more looking back.
The show itself was accessible and easy to view. I never felt put off by anything, even the violent virtual reality that did make me dizzy as they said it would. Warning… Hold On!!!
So I had a great time, loved the work but now that I am back home, I am having trouble recalling a lot of the show. So I went back to the Whitney site, which is very robust, where I saw the work again and read about the artists and even listened to some interviews with the artists.
The one thing that did stick with me was the DebtFair installation. It really brought home the fact that so many get rich off of art (real estate being the other way to become a billionaire) and there is nothing set up financially to help artists support themselves as they work towards success. And then if they do make it, will they ever make enough money to pay off all their debt?
With Trump spending almost $3 million on each visit to Mar-A-Lago, does any of this make sense? How do we accept the relationship of debt to artist income when the government is spending so much just moving the President back and forth for 2-3 day visits to Florida?
I don’t know whether to fight or give up.