I went to the Whitney Biennial with my friends Meiko and Yoshico. I took it as a bad sign that I chose a day one weekend when the subway was rerouted crazytime, it took me hours to get from Brooklyn into the city…all after realizing that I did not in fact have a free ticket to get in as I thought. Boo. It wasn’t about the money (well, kind of)… it was about how mostly everyone I knew griped about the show, so not worth paying for! I recently had a conversation with my friend Abi regarding our respective backgrounds, and the discrepancy between the ‘Chinese cheap’ and the ‘Jew cheap’ which is this yo: Jews are all about the low prices, which is the obvious building block for cheapness. Chinese people agree, but the Chinese cheap has an additional dimension of prizing discounts as a sliding value system. Meaning that if something is say 2 dollars, that is ok, but fabulous if the thing is of 5 dollar retail! Meaning one might splurge on discount designer while walking an extra mile to get ice cream and broccoli at 50 cents cheaper (what my friend Natika and I do...) So, the Whitney costs 18 bucks to get in while I was supposed to get in for free, but in the end paid the $12 student price as the guy got distracted by my t-shirt. That equals an ok deal.
Editor’s note: If I must clarify that I don’t think all Jewish or Chinese people are actually cheap, then you gotta be kidding me.
PS Editor’s note: I forgot that you can just get the stickers that people leave on the post outside the Whitney from after they leave. Good advice for students, poor and/or cheap people of all ethnicities.
Anyway. I feel like I am starting to turn into one of those picky art people in New York, in the same way that I have always been picky for the best deals in town. Before I arrived, I was real psyched to check out all shows, hungry for art. I had never seen any of the Biennales before and I was excited to go, except now after 3 months of NY art overload I seem to have earned the right to complain about it first.
Well, the pieces I really liked were from a compilation on the top floors that showcased selections of work from all the past biennials. William Anastasi’s ‘5 photos with 5 cameras’ and Richard Artschwager ‘Description of a table’ are sublime! It was nice to see a compilation of past artists, some of which are now big names and some whom have slipped out of the canon of art history over time. I don’t have to say that anytime I get to see Philip Guston I am in heaven. In this year’s show, Charles Ray’s hippie dippy flower doodles was by far my favourite. I liked the idea of curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari trying to pin down a loose idea of ‘Americaness’ in 2010, but I was just disappointed at how much bad work was there. For instance, the comparison between Michael Jackson and Baudelaire…. Duh.
Downstairs, when Meiko, Yoshico and I had our tickets scanned, the guard at the entrance made an animated proclamation that ‘Yoko Ono is in the building!’ You can imagine how totally psyched my two Japanese girlfriends were to go and find her somewhere to make some chitchat. I myself wasn’t bothered about the idea, as thought I had no care for celebrity, but when we were upstairs on the top floor I turned around from examining something to see the three of them politely chatting in Japanese. Ah! Yoko Ono, my hero, who now in her seventies looked super fit in a black spandex tracksuit and a big white brimmed hat. I couldn’t help but look at her chest, as I was very accustomed through videos depicting her fabulously large, pendulous breasts. Today it seemed as though she had a bra, or the suit was keeping it together. I moved towards them but had nothing to say; just watching them talk, staring at Yoko with a dumb grin on my face. I was surprised she was so patient and nice about getting stopped by fans, but my friends are so adorable who could be rude to them... As she talked I guess because I was silent and dumb, trying to hide behind Meiko, she kept looking at me, and finally asked me what my shirt said. I wish I had a recording of her voice as she leaned towards my chest, reading ‘Good girls go to heaven Bad girls go to… Italy!’ she laughed at the punch line and stuck out her hand with a smile, saying it was nice to meet me.
*Sparkles* In my head was the sensation of bubbles popping. We shook hands and said bye bye bye. It was cool that my shirt was her exit from fan chat. I thought of her poetry. And hey, the curator is from Italy man, what are the chances.
I was starstruck! Art! Starstruck! Two words I hate to see together! However, it made it totally worth the 12 bucks… Americano, yes baby.
