What Does ‘Now' Look Like?

The Whitney Biennial returns, unusually late and uncommonly strong.

- By Jerry Saltz. Photograph Matteo Mobilio

About 20 percent of this year’s Whitney Biennial, “Quiet As It’s Kept,” is really alive. That’s passably high for one of these cattle calls—in fact, it means that this Biennial, which was delayed a year by the pandemic, is the best one in some time. There’s very little here that’s really bad. Too much that’s mild. The Biennial has always trafficked in the contemporary, but this offering radiates the power of now.

The star of the show may be the space. Walking through the rampantly filled fifth floor is like drifting distracted through a spice market of art. It’s a swap meet of unalike items, a rejoinder to minimalism. An abundance of abstract painting—some of it very strong—lends much-needed gusts of color that exhibitions like this often lack. The sixth floor reflects our collective trip into the underworld, echoing the fear and isolation that took hold in the era of covid-19 and white ethnonationalism. It is dark, filled with alcoves, bottlenecks, and ceiling installations that make the world topsy-turvy. Some of it feels dated, the dying remnants of a contrived postmodern fracturing. There are long wall labels projecting meanings that are not actually in the art. This feels predicated on the idea that if the cause or subject matter of a work of art is good, then the work itself is good. For better and worse, “Quiet As It’s Kept” is a black mirror of our times. Two telling exclusions complicate things, however.

THE WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2022: QUIET AS IT’S KEPT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART. ON VIEW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 5.