Art N' About

Author: ALEXXA GOTTHARDT

Contemporary art is hot. Think lying on an asphalt high-rise rooftop, mid-day, mid-June; a 1920s forbidden French cabaret; or Sean Connery circa very early James Bond. Hot. Sizzling in fact. Just one step into a top New York, London or Paris gallery causes even the most expert aesthetic brows to perspire. Buyers gasp and pant. Dealers drop like flies. Yes, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but today, the art market and art lovers worldwide just can't get enough of contemporary art.
Old masters are cold. Impressionists, freezing. But art made and sold today is the reason why collectors everywhere are stripping down to their bikinis and speedos, ready to take on the heat. This art is fresh, innovative and loves to party (exhibition openings are the place to be seen these days). Not only that, it's available and accessible. But where does one acquire contemporary art, you ask? Where is the sweltering sun of the contemporary art world's ever-revolving universe? Well, just follow the waves of heat right down to NYC where now, through May 28, the Whitney Biennial 2006 shows off the work of around 100 of the today's most innovative artists.
Along with other illustrious, utterly hip contemporary art fairs such as the Venice Biennale and the Frieze Art Fair in London, the Whitney Biennial serves as fuel to the wild inferno that is the contemporary art world. Organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, the fair provides both a shimmering showcase for some of the world's best, yet perhaps less-well known artists, while also giving art lovers and investors a place to feel and see the heat.
This year's biennial features a sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, always thought-provoking, diverse, outrageous mix of work by painters, sculptors, photographers, performance and video artists and the increasingly significant artist collective. While all of the artists included deserve the white-cube glory they are receiving, some are definitely turning up the heat more than others.
Occulist filmmaker Kenneth Anger screens a striking, absurd short about Mickey Mouse. Paul Chan's whimsical digital animation, commenting on American consumerism, is both beautiful and poignant. Middlebury alumnus Robert Gober's raw black and white photographs of Jones Beach are paired with newspaper clippings describing murders to create an effect all at once dark and mysterious. Painter Tory Brauntuch creates refined Conte-crayon drawings of piles of discarded clothing. Even some contemporary art veterans such as Dan Graham and Tony Oursler joined forces with the band Japanther to transform their live puppet opera into an ecstasy-driven, abstract video.
Yes, art lovers, collectors and gallerists everywhere are heating up at the prospect of new, fresh, accessible contemporary art. If you, too, are feeling a little warm at the thought of blissed-out video, risqué painting and cutting-edge performance, take the short drive to the Whitney sometime in the next couple months. Don't forget the swimsuit, it's going to be hot.