“This is not only the greatest of Whitney Biennials, it is the greatest show ever produced by the Whitney Museum.”

Charlie Finch, 2010 artnet    

“Unfortunately - and there's no gentle way to put this - the show as a whole is a debacle…. bad - in so many ways it exhausts one's powers of discrimination”

                       Sebastian Smee, The Boston Globe

“(The Whitney Biennial) avoids razzmatazz, star power, and high production….The art world has clamored for these things for years, and people should cheer this show.”

              Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine Art Review

“The show lives up - or down - to its billing. It has no theme; its catalog is slight; its installation, Spartan.

Spectacle is out. Much of what's in is quiet and hermetic to the point of initially looking blank.”

Holland Cotter, The New York Times Company

    To those readers who conclude that such rankling proves that judgments about art are merely indulgences in personal preference, please wait. I would like to propose an alternative explanation for the ludicrous discrepancies regarding the current Whitney Biennial - the fact that the artworks selected for the Biennial are divorced from the crucial issues of our time. As such, they eradicate the possibility for considered art discourse. The artworks enshrined in the annals of art history have always expressed their era’s most defining characteristic, whether that is social/economic/historic/religious/cultural/political/technological.

  I propose that instead of wallowing in subjectivity, these same critics would have written meaningful commentary based upon rational judgment if the art they were reviewing was propelled by the force that defines the 21st century - environmentalism.

  The Avant-Guardians series highlights my belief that concerns regarding the planet’s waters, air, soil, climate, and wildlife distinguish our era from all previous eras. The threats to their welfare are so urgent and so severe that countless artists are rallying on their behalf. Their artworks take the form of creative solutions to environmental problems.

If the Whitney Biennial curators sought art at the forefront of cultural change, they would have discovered an outpouring of artistic innovation that is being inspired by the thematic, material, and aesthetic environmentalism.  These are the artists who are likely to be revered in future annals of art history. Love it or hate it, the Biennial is hopelessly provincial.

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