We have all had this feeling — the aching legs, yearnings for a couch on which to rest our tired haunches, salivating for a cappuccino, drooping eye lids. We stare distractedly through a display case at yet another row of yellowing archival materials as our eyes glaze over. Just two seconds later, we find ourselves crashing through the display. Stunned, lying in a heap of glass shards, we hear the crackle of walkie-talkies from the museum guards: “We’ve got another case of aesthetic fatigue in Hall 8.” Well-heeled museum goers tut-tut on the sidelines, “Poor thing, so much reading to do and nowhere to sit.”
At the risk of being extremely unfashionable, I am willing to say I did not like the Taipei Biennale. I know, you are all thinking; “This writer is an anti-intellectual boor. This is so not keeping with the tone of Randian.”
Hear me out:
I will admit there were some astounding pieces, but they were crowded out by a number of uninspiring “serious” works. (Note: the word “serious” must be said very seriously with an earnest expression on the face.) My major objection was a selection of works which largely fall into two categories: “archival” and what I will, for the purposes of this article, call “rummage sale” works.
We’ve all seen these pieces — random agglomerations of objects which are supposed to represent the memories or life of an individual, or perhaps serve some other goal. When Song Dong does it, it’s almost successful simply on an aesthetic level. But not everyone can pull it off, and too many of these pieces just end up looking like scenes from a hoarder’s basement. They require a lot of time to digest, and they don’t often yield a whole lot in terms of meaning.
This seems to be an unfortunate recent trend to include mountains of documentation of some particular world event or atrocity, as if art museum-goers do not have access to the news.
I take issue with these works because they are an exhibition-viewing time suck. The same problem applies to archival works. Why is it that for a curator to be considered “serious,” they feel the need to turn the exhibition floor into a library? This seems to be an unfortunate recent trend to include mountains of documentation of some particular world event or atrocity, as if art museum-goers do not have access to the news. Certainly, addressing the issues of our time is one of the central goals of art, but how is the artist different than from the activist, journalist or academic? For one thing, they are probably less informed (not in all cases, but in many), but, on the positive side, they also have the ability to create art, not just place documents inside a glass case. People may have a tendency to say such works are interesting just because they bring up an interesting or unfamiliar topic, but they frequently fail to engage the viewer on a formal or aesthetic level.
Another hurdle to our enjoyment of such exhibitions is the inclusion of too many videos which are too long. Though these may be fascinating, they require (in the case of many of the videos in Taipei) at least a 30 minute commitment — not to mention the unavoidable possibility of walking into the video half-way into the narrative arc of the piece. Videos like this would benefit from having dedicated screenings at particular times (such as Steve McQueen’s timed screenings at Venice Biennale) or perhaps even in a separate venue so that they can get the attention they deserve, not just a mere “drive-by” glance on the way to the next exhibition hall.
Such a densely packed show delivers good academic credit to the curators; the Art World nods in agreement about how such and such biennale is a “serious biennale,” and everyone pretends that they enjoyed the show, because they too are “serious.”
But the real loser in this charade is the artwork. When you are faced with 50 works (for a modest biennale), all requiring at least a 10-30 minute commitment to begin to understand the work, that means that it would take 8-25 hours of solid viewing to see the exhibition — this is not taking into account that sanity-saving coffee break. And with the amount of reading material displayed some of these shows, the viewing of an individual work could take as long as an hour — let alone the time it may take to absorb and analyze the information..
What curators do not take into account is the insatiable human desire to consume the show in its entirety, like a golden retriever wolfing down the contents of a buffet table in one gulp. Because you know that if you skip even one room or one video some art world know-it-all will inevitably say, “I can’t believe you missed such and such a work!!! It was phenomenal.” Nowadays, art professionals go to biennales not so much to purely enjoy the experience but to build up our mental rolodex of artworks in order to be aware of what artists are doing.
So, when a curator fills a biennale with too much work, especially work requiring a long attention span, they force us either to see a small fraction of the works, or spend three days viewing them which, given the length of such trips and the desire to see other museums, galleries, studio visits etc. is, well, just unrealistic.
A better strategy would be to break up such work with a selection of palate-cleansing pieces — very visual works, sound pieces, abstract painting, installations — works that can be appreciated in relatively little time and which give us a break from label reading, video watching and skimming documents for that pertinent piece of information which unlocks the meaning of a piece.
Another approach would be to create a mini-biennale with 20-30 works; this would allow the viewer time to fully contemplate and appreciate the works without feeling rushed or having to apply for a sabbatical just to go and view an exhibition. Just like many video artists, curators often fail to respect their audience. They are so wrapped up in the creation of the project that they lose touch with the average viewer.
People do get tired. They don’t want to stand and read over 5,000 words of text in a display case. They don’t want to feel as if they are being lectured at; they don’t want to watch long and ponderous videos that go nowhere and have no climax or punch line and were shot with a total absence of technique or flair. Dear curators, I urge you to think carefully, to hear this plea; please stop the madness before more unwitting people are taken by this silent (audience) killer.
