I was on the whole disappointed by this year’s Whitney Biennial — it was hard for me to tell if one video installation was art or an HR training video — but as an economist, I have to admit the exhibition was successful in at least one respect: It did what art is supposed to do, which is to hold up a mirror to our society and economy. And this year’s biennial shows how America’s elite institutions are stifling innovation and creativity.
The theme of this year’s show was to use artificial intelligence and the “rhetoric around gender and authenticity” to “explore the permeability of the relationships between mind and body, the fluidity of identity and the growing precariousness of the natural and constructed worlds.” I liked some of it, but I was not alone in my disappointment. Some critics also complained that much of it was predictable and risk-averse.
It is unfortunate that artists, known for their unconventional politics and a solidarity with those unseen and discriminated against, now have views that have been adopted or even outpaced by mainstream cultural institutions and corporations. If artists want to offend or provoke, they need to do work that will truly shock their audience — say, an installation sympathizing with the Jan. 6 protesters. But it is doubtful an artist pushing those kinds of boundaries would be accepted to the MFA program at Yale, let alone get representation from a well-regarded New York gallery, never mind catch the attention of a curator at the Whitney.