There were ragged dishtowels, lemons, aquariums, Gatorade mix, daisies, a wine cooler, and a lot of plywood. This was While Enhancing a Diminishing Deep Down Thirst, the Juice Broke Loose, an installation by New York artist Phoebe Washburn at the 2008 Whitney Biennial.
Washburn’s piece, which was wedged into a corner on the third floor of the exhibition, is, in a word, quirky. The elaborate and whimsically titled structure looks like the tree house of a crazy 10-year-old chemist. It even made the very focused—dare I say, pretentious—viewers at the Whitney crack a smile.
The piece is fun, but its charm masks some truly radical elements, like the fact that an artist can now legitimately work with media such as packages of instant sports drinks and aquariums. Not only that, but they can use these materials to create a real-life version of Jimmy Neutron’s secret lab and display the result at a major American art museum. And Enhancing a Diminishing Deep Down Thirst, the Juice Broke Loose is just one of many pieces at the Biennial that begs viewers to reflect on how significantly the definition of acceptable artistic media has changed since the days of oil on canvas.
Washburn’s piece was not atypical. While viewing the hundreds of pieces at the Biennial, it became increasingly clear that in the 21st century, any material is game for creating art, particularly for installations and sculpture. There were cardboard boxes, lots of molded plastic, glittery cinderblocks, driftwood, multicolored blocks of resin, and postcards with pieces of hair taped on.
The nonexistent restraints on artistic media facilitate exciting and innovative expressions of attitudes, feelings, and impulses. (It is, for example, undeniable that While Enhancing a Diminishing Deep Down Thirst, the Juice Broke Loose captured a sense of childish fantasy and whimsy in a wholly original and effective way.) But on the other hand, these new artistic horizons are, in many ways, daunting and problematic.
One could not identify the majority of the installations and sculptures at the Biennial as art if they were not securely within the context of a gallery. Without the presence of security guards and the sounds of other visitors’ whispered comments, many of these pieces would seem like detritus that happens to be arranged in an interesting way.
Whether it is Eduardo Sarabia’s playful replica of warehouse shelves stocked with plastic chatchkis or Walead Beshty’s collection of FedEx boxes, these nontraditional media all depend on how their meaning is manipulated by being in a museum—without this high art context, they are just a warehouse full of cheesy stuff or a bunch of wrecked FedEx boxes. They could not stand without the whitewashed walls around them, without the things that delineate them as something special and worth the viewer’s consideration.
Where does this complicated situation leave the viewer? Visitors to the Biennial must suspend disbelief, and—if they want to enjoy the show—give themselves over to the conceit that much of the art would be recognized as discarded junk if it were on a New York City sidewalk.
While the 21st century art aesthetic is radical, it has advantages that many of the more traditional forms don’t. As you walk around the Whitney, you are often physically manipulated and moved by the installations and sculptures. Perhaps the most poignant example of this is William Cordova’s frame reconstruction of the house where Chicago police killed two Black Panthers leaders in 1969. The piece literally guides viewers as they look at and move through it. This experiential effect is impossible in two-dimensional, traditional sculpture.
But the question lingers: are effects like these worth the problems that come along with them? The answer can only be found on an individual basis—and for it, you have to go see for yourself.