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RECEIVED NOTIONS IN BERLIN
Critics are offering their first takes on
the third Berlin Biennial, which opened last week at both the
Kunst-Werke and the Martin-Gropius-Bau in the German capital.
"When you go to the museum, don't forget your reading
glasses," advises the Süddeutsche Zeitung's Holger Liebs,
who likens the exhibition's theoretical bent to an
"introductory seminar on subcultures." Die Tageszeitung's Brigitte Werneburg
regrets the absence of the experimental bent that
characterized the first two biennials. "The third Berlin
Biennial . . . has devoted itself to themes, not aesthetic
proposals," writes Werneburg. "Themes or topics that are
firmly anchored in the art industry and are completely
undisputed (in contrast, for example, to the question of the
'new painting'): Migration, the city, its social and aesthetic
focal points, its art, music, and fashion scenes, and finally
film—under the catchword ‘Other Cinemas'—are all identified as
objects of artistic debate."
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART'S PACKAGED TOUR
Die Zeit's Hanno Rauterberg has only
critical words for the traveling exhibition "MoMA in Berlin,"
which opens February 20 at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie. The
exhibition, whose most recent stop was Houston, presents key
works from the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection,
all on loan while MoMA is being renovated for its
seventy-fifth anniversary next year. Rauterberg questions the
logic behind the "prepackaged" show: At a cost of 8.5 million
euros (11 million dollars), the exhibition must draw 550,000
visitors just to break even.
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
director Peter-Klaus Schuster describes the show as
"the cultural event of 2004," but Rauterberg wonders
why the foundation—which oversees the Neue Nationalgalerie—has
come to depend on other institutions to fill up its
programming. "The exhibition arrives as a complete and careful
package," Rauterberg comments. "Schuster and his polemical
collaborators from the Friends of the National Gallery
Association, which is carrying the financial responsibility,
just have to unpack the crates." Everything from the labels to
the catalogue has already been taken care of in New York.
Rauterberg wonders what the show would have been had it
offered a German perspective on MoMA's collection. Also
missing are more contemporary works. "In Houston, contemporary
art was relatively well represented with Felix
Gonzalez-Torres," writes Rauterberg. "In Berlin, by contrast,
modernity ends—with the exception of Philip Guston and Gerhard
Richter—in the '60s."
CROFF PASSES MUSTER
Davide Croff's nomination as the president
of the Venice Biennale has finally been passed by the Italian
government. As both La Repubblica and Il Manifesto report, Croff's
nomination, which was championed by Cultural Minister Guiliano
Urbani, was blocked last month by the Italian senate's
cultural commission. A debate last week among the commission's
members did not seem promising for Croff, but the final vote
was twenty-six to twelve in his favor. "The Biennale needs
stability and clarity in this precarious time of change,"
Croff told both newspapers. The change in question is the
transformation of the Biennale from a "society" to a partially
privatized "Fondazione." Croff, who will replace outgoing
president Franco Bernabè, also promised to get the festivals
going on time. "I intend to guarantee the autonomy along with
the functionality [of the Biennale's festivals] and to respect
the deadlines—indispensable elements in the realization of the
five events scheduled for 2004." Next up: selecting an
artistic director for 2005's 51st Venice Biennale for the
visual arts. Judging from Croff's own troubled path to the
presidency, one can look forward to a long and complex debate
before a final decision is made.
—Jennifer Allen |
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