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Then and now: Whitney Biennial 1993
Art Journal, Spring, 2005 by Elisabeth Sussman
It is a reasonable claim to say that the 1993 Whitney Biennial was one of a number of shows that fixed the terms of critical debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s. More than ten years later, what continues to strike me about this particular Biennial is its triumphant introduction of a generation of artists who had never shown together before and collectively demanded attention, as well as a rebalancing of critical discourse. Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Daniel Martinez, Renee Green, Gary Simmons, Pepon Osorio, Janine Antoni, and many others were given space and resources to do site-specific installations. Boosting the general intensity of the installations to an even higher level were a reading room chock-full of catalogues and texts of significance at the moment, and spaces within the exhibition floors that featured a constantly running video program including, among others, the "amateur" video by George Halliday of the Rodney King beating and Mark Rappaport's Rock Hudson confessional tape.
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This Biennial was the first one organized during the administration of director David Ross, well known for championing cutting-edge art. (I had come with Ross from Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art.) Once at the Whitney, I was appointed head curator of the 1993 Biennial. I selected a team of other Whitney curators: John Handhardt, longtime Whitney curator of media arts; Lisa Phillips, a curator recognized for mid-career surveys of artists staged at the Whitney during the 1980s, and Thelma Golden, who, like Ross and me, had just joined the museum staff. Golden was the Whitney's first black curator. Connie Wolf, newly appointed as director of education, also joined the team.
To describe the exhibition as either a curatorial success or as a "triumph" for a new artistic generation is to replace what was a maelstrom of negative criticism at the time of the exhibition with an aura of critical enthusiasm that now, retrospectively, surrounds it. At the time, it seemed to me, it offended everyone. The pendulum has swung the other way now, and the 1993 Whitney Biennial is regarded as a benchmark in the recent history of exhibitions discussed in this cluster of essays.
In this brief text, I want to look back at and reexamine some of the early criticism of the exhibition. At the time, I not surprisingly felt under attack by criticism that seemed to exceed the predictable lambasting of the Biennials. A decade later, reading some of the critics again, I clearly recognize that this was a moment of confusion and change to which critics were charged to respond. Their responses were often troubled, sometimes visceral, and generally engaged. Many used the word "watershed," but it was not clear at the time if this was a term of respect or repudiation.
Although he should not be singled out, I cite Peter Plagens's review for Newsweek as criticism of the Biennial because of the ironies of the time and place of his review. I do not want to suggest that his response was unusual or exceptional. But the ironies are particularly interesting. Bill Clinton became president in January 1993. On February 28, 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed, killing six and injuring more than one thousand. This bombing was cited as "the single most destructive act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil." Clues led authorities to the Little Egypt section of Jersey City, New Jersey, to a man identified as a twenty-five-year-old "Islamic fundamentalist." The reporter's account of the bombing and apprehension in the March 15 issue of Newsweek claimed that the Clinton administration was much more "shaken than it has publicly let on." "Intelligence officials," the magazine noted, "have privately warned the administration that even if the attack proves to be the work of freelancers acting without foreign sponsorship, it may attract more seasoned international operatives who perceive a new American vulnerability to domestic terrorism." "The problem," a senior administration official is quoted as saying, "is that now a lot of bad folks overseas know that even though this guy screwed up afterwards, he still pulled it off."
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In the back of this same issue of Newsweek was Plagens's review of the 1993 Whitney Biennial. Coincidentally, his review title was "Fade from White." The large photograph that dominated the review was of the curatorial team and Ross standing in the midst of Nan Goldin's installation of photographs. At the margins of the picture were images of Daniel Martinez's buttons. Detournements of the standard museum badge that visitors are required to wear as proof of admission, Martinez's buttons bore word segments of the phrase, "I can't imagine ever wanting to be white." Depending on what time a visitor entered, he or she received either 1) I can't, 2) imagine, 3) ever wanting, 4) to be, or 5) white--and at some time during the day, the whole sentence. (I later received from some anonymous detractor of Martinez's a button that read "I can't ever imagine wanting to be Daniel Martinez.")
