March 9, 2000
Signs of New `Sensation' at the Whitney
Museum
By JUDITH H. DOBRZYNSKI
Every couple of years the Whitney Museum of American Art
mounts its
Biennial, an exhibition of new and often cutting-edge
American art.
This year, one work may be a little too cutting.
"Sanitation," an installation by Hans Haacke, a well-known
German-born
New York artist, puts Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in the company
of the
Nazis, with quotations by him written in the Fraktur script
favored by the
Third Reich and the sound of jackboots marching in the
background.
The artwork, which will be on view when the 2000 Biennial
opens on March
23, recalls the fury over the First Amendment issues raised by
the
"Sensation" exhibition at the city-subsidized Brooklyn Museum
of Art last
fall when the Mayor attacked some of the art work as "sick"
and
"disgusting."
The work by Mr. Haacke was commissioned by the museum, which
did not
know ahead of time exactly what he would produce.
Despite the deliberate intent by Mr. Haacke to provoke the
mayor and the
public, Maxwell L. Anderson, the museum's director, said that
the Whitney
decided in the last few days to back the artist and take its
chances with City
Hall.
"This one will hit a nerve," he said, "but I have no qualms
about showing it,
though on a personal level I don't share the premise of the
work, which is to
liken various public officials to Nazis."
Mr. Haacke's installation is planned around a wall lined with
a row of 8 to
12 garbage cans, each with a speaker playing an audio of
marching troops.
On the wall will be a reproduction of the First Amendment
framed in gold
and six quotations, written in the Gothic typescript used by
Hitler, from
American politicians.
Three are from Mr. Giuliani and refer to "Sensation," which
included a
work that especially upset the mayor, a rendering of the
Virgin Mary by
Chris Ofili that incorporated pornographic cutouts and
elephant dung. In the
Haacke work, one quotation from the mayor takes issue with the
hefty
subsidies given to the museum by the city: "We will do
everything that we
can to remove funding for the Brooklyn Museum until the
director comes to
his senses."
The other quotations are from Senator Jesse Helms, the
Republican from
North Carolina, Pat Robertson, the conservative religious
broadcaster, and
Patrick J. Buchanan, the candidate for the Reform Party
presidential
nomination, all outspoken opponents of the National Endowment
for the
Arts. Senator Helms's quote reads: "No tax fund shall be used
for garbage
just because some self-appointed 'experts' have been foolish
enough to call it
'art.' "
Mr. Anderson said yesterday that as a courtesy he was
notifying Mr.
Giuliani of the Haacke work. Sunny Mindel, the mayor's
spokeswoman, said
that Mr. Giuliani had not seen the work and had no comment.
Unlike the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney gets only a small
amount of
monetary support from the city, mainly for its educational
programs and not
enough to make or break any of them, Mr. Anderson said.
However, the museum is also intent on expanding at some point
in the next
few years and would probably seek city money for construction.
As a survey show that is supposed to reflect the best of very
new art, the
Biennial is one of the museum's most popular exhibitions. It
regularly makes
headlines, but they are usually complaints about the poor
quality of the
choices or the state of the art world in general. This year's
version was
organized by a team of six curators from institutions around
the country and
Mr. Anderson.
"There will be other work in it that people will find
difficult," Mr.
Anderson said, and the museum will hang a sign at its entrance
warning
visitors that some works are challenging. Mr. Anderson said
that there
would be no special signs or security measures for the Haacke
installation.
"Other works will set off bells for other visitors, and it
just becomes
impossible," Mr. Anderson said.
The Haacke work will occupy a room of its own on the third
floor of the
Whitney, as the artist requested. Several other works also
have separate
rooms.
Like all other Biennial artworks, the Haacke work will have a
wall label,
Mr. Anderson said, "to describe the intention of the artist as
we read it."
Those labels have not been completed, but Mr. Anderson said he
wrote a
draft yesterday for the Haacke installation saying that a
common theme of
his is "to probe the foibles and perceived hypocrisies of the
elite and
powerful."
"Haacke is the master of figuring out how to make you squirm,"
Mr.
Anderson added.
The Biennial's curators obviously knew that last year when
they invited Mr.
Haacke to participate. Like about a half-dozen other artists,
Mr. Haacke was
asked simply to submit a proposal for what he would do,
pending approval
by the curators.
When the exhibition catalog went to press last fall, Mr.
Haacke's work was
not fully conceived, but the curators had inklings of his
intentions then. Mr.
Haacke's catalog entry refers to the "Sensation" furor and
says, in part:
"According to the mayor, the First Amendment and the doctrine
of the
separation of church and state, embedded in the American
Constitution, do
not apply to public institutions and institutions receiving
public funds. He
seems to share that opinion with the Nazis, who mounted an
exhibition called
Degenerate Art in Munich in 1937."
Mr. Haacke, who was born in Cologne in 1936, studied in the
United States
in the 1960's and then settled in New York. He first gained
notoriety in 1971
when the Guggenheim Museum canceled an exhibition of his work
that was
to include documentation of the real-estate holdings of New
York City
slumlords, including some museum benefactors.
The Whitney did not receive Mr. Haacke's detailed proposal
until Feb. 25,
Mr. Anderson said. The curators talked about the difficulties
and gave a
go-ahead. Mr. Anderson said that he then discussed the work
with Leonard
A. Lauder, the museum's chairman, and Joel S. Ehrenkrantz, its
president.
"Their concern was 'Are we doing the right thing?' with the
controversy it
will create," Mr. Anderson said. But they gave their support.
Although the museum commissioned the work, that does not
necessarily
mean that it is destined to be part of the permanent
collection. "We often buy
works from the Biennial," Mr. Anderson said, "But the
collection committee
will meet in spring to discuss that."
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
carol starr
taos, new mexico, usa
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
