
The lobby lights of the Whitney Museum (image via Jo Poon’s Flickstream)
On the third floor, 2014 Whitney Biennial curator Stuart Comer professed to “provide a kaleidoscopic glimpse of this historic moment,” emphasizing work that seemed in flux and in transition from one medium to another, one state to another, or even across borders and identities.
Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst’s Relationship series (2008–13) is the most obvious example, and also the most successful, as the couple documented their relationship as a transgender couple transitioning in opposite directions (Drucker from male to female, Ernest from female to male). The images are intimate, feeling almost alchemical at moments as flashes of light and loving gestures demonstrate a closeness one can only have with a lover. The distance between the two bodies or, in this case, the camera and the subject sometimes feels so close you can almost hear them breathe.

A view of Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst’s “Relationship” (2008–13), forty-six chromogenic prints (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)
None of the other works on the floor approach that level of magic, except perhaps the ink drawings and abstract works by Etel Adnan. The Lebanese-born artist presents a poetic vision of the world in flux that can feel simultaneously universal and intimate with her simple landscapes and long pages of ink drawings.
Morgan Fisher’s “Ro(Ro(Room)om)om)” (2014) addresses another type of flux, of the Whitney Museum itself, which is in the state of transitioning to another location further downtown. Fisher has taken three distinct spaces from the new, still under-construction building and distorted their scale so that the largest is the smallest and vice versa. The result is a strangely attractive display of the reversal of power. A closet-like form stands in the middle, inaccessible and monolithic like an obelisk surrounded by a stepped plinth. All of the spaces look hollow, like they were abandoned and will never be complete.

Tony Greene, “His Puerile Gestures” (1989), mixed media
This floor also had the misfortune of having some of the worst pieces in the show, most of which looked like frat house hijinks gone wrong. Ken Okiishi’s painted flatscreens and Bjarne Melgaard’s plush, room-sized installation, which incorporates mannequins, projections, and pillows, both look like the remnants of a college rager that resulted in someone turning in the refuse as their art project.
The most perplexing display was the room of paintings by Tony Greene, curated by Richard Hawkins and Catherine Opie. Greene’s work often looked like kitschy paintings in a suburban Italian restaurant, but there were moments of clarity, as in “Untitled (orange pour)” (1990), where you could see the push and pull of desire framed by the thick veneer of sentimentality. Even if I left the room ambivalent about the works, they were some of the most memorable, for better or worse.

Paintings by Keith Mayerson
That tension of art that walks the line between bad and good and what criteria we use to make that decision is at the core of two other displays, including a room full of paintings by Keith Mayerson and a display by Triple Canopy. Mayerson’s oil paintings have a breezy sentimental streak, but there’s something attractively self-conscious about them. Triple Canopy focused on systems that circulate objects and images, many of which are banal, but the intellectual structure is fascinating, even if a little dry and academic.
Comer’s role in the Whitney Biennial appeared to be to poke and prod the boundaries between various categories, exploring the state of becoming again and again. That sense of experimentation was most certainly welcome.

Two works by Ken Okiishi, both titled “gesture/data” (2013), oil on flatscreen and video transferred on USB flash drive

Etel Adnan’s “Champs de Petrol” (2013), wool, overlooking two display cases with her accordion book drawings

Detail of Etel Adnan, “Untitled” (2013), oil on canvas

Etel Adnan, “New York: From the Triborough Bridge to South of Manhatan, New York, May 21, 1990” (1990), Japanese ink on paper

A 19th-century American painting, “We Go for the Union” (c.1840-50), oil on canvas, in Triple Canopy’s “Pointing Machine” display

Paintings (oil on linen) by Keith Mayerson

Martin Wong’s “Closed” (1984–85), acrylic on canvas, with a glimpse of Robert Kinmont’s “The wings are in the paper drawer” (1972–73), wood, paper, and Snow Goose wings, at bottom left

A view of an installation by A.L. Steiner and Morgan Fisher’s “Ro(Ro(Room)om)om)” (2014), drywall on metal studs

Morgan Fisher, “Ro(Ro(Room)om)om)” (2014), drywall on metal studs

Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernest, “Relationship” (2008–13), forty-six chromogenic prints, ed. 1/10

Detail of Tony Greene’s “Untitled (orange pour)” (1990), mixed media

Detail of Uri Aran, “Untitled” (2014), mixed media

Detail of Uri Aran, “Untitled” (2014), mixed media

Artist Ei Arakawa posing in from of his “Hawaiian Presence (Hawaii)” (2014), wire, fabric, straw, and plastic

Photo of Jacolby Satterwhite’s “Reifying Desire 6 – Island of Treasure” (2014), high-definition digital 3-D video, color, sound (20 min)

From Bjarne Melgaard’s room-sized installation

View of one of the mannequins in Bjarne Melgaard’s installation

Another view of Bjarne Melgaard’s untitled installation

Travis Jeppesen, “Venus of Willendorf/Artist Unknown” (2014), mixed media

Fred Lonidler, “GAF Snapshirts” (1976), 32 photo- and text-printed t-shirts
The 2014 Whitney Biennial opens Friday, March 7 at the Whitney Museum (945 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan) and continues until May 25.
jacolby’s work is god-awful.