Annual Biennial
Michael Rosenthal Gallery
San Francisco, CA
1 August – 5 September 2009
featuring works by: Lisa Adams, Ida Applebroog, Carl Auge, Nicholas Bohac, Amy Casey, Nancy Chunn, Adriane Colburn, Jim Dine, Inga Dorosz, Jane Fine, N. Sean Glover, Robert Gutierrez, Peter Halley, Veronica de Jesus, Chris Johanson & Jo Jackson, Joan Mitchell, Christine Monohan, Elizabeth Mooney, Bruce Nauman, Alison Pebworth, James Rosenquist, Edwin Schlossberg, Emily Sevier, Kacie Erin Smith, Robert Syrett, Carrie Mae Weems, William Wegman, Megan Whitmarsh

by Tonya Warner

Fairly recently there has been a glut of international biennials cropping up around the globe.  Far flung places such as Herzliya, Coruche, and Kwangju have joined the ranks of Venice and Sao Paulo.  Analysts of the international art scene have hailed this proliferation as emblematic of dissolving borders and shifting the balance of power, of giving a voice to the “periphery”.  Whether this is the case or not is an argument for another article, however, one element these utopians glaze over is the undeniable draw of capital.  Once can appreciate the appeal of increasing tourism – especially art tourism – and everyone knows art tourists have money.

I see this similarly in Michael Rosenthal’s “Annual Biennial,” an empty, non-sensical title that loosely translates to “group show with no theme so I can weather this economic storm”.  (In addition to up-and-coming and stable artists, Rosenthal has opened his flatfiles to give the show some celebrity names.)  There is something about this gallery that always reminds me of New York in the early 1980s – in the sudden popularity of what was young and cool, gallerists were desperately afraid of being left behind.  In this show, there is a jumble of real, interesting art, and empty hipsterism.

Now I am definitely not normally a supporter of any art that involves neon (colors that is – love the Dan Flavin), but I found the boldly colorful semiabstract works by Jane Fine to be intriguing.  Addressing the physicality and act of painting, Fine creates works built around sloppy, melting piles of poured acrylic paint.  With the help of details drawn in with pen, these blotches resolve into recognizable forms, such as tanks, airplanes, and mountains, betraying an underlying level of control.  Some compositions are more representational than others but all create a delightfully active picture plane that makes your eye bounce around like a pinball.  The interplay of macro and micro, sloppiness and calculation, materiality and representation is captivating.

Like Fine, the work of Amy Casey embodies a controlled sense of chaos and a certain level of paranoia.  Houses built on stilts collapse into devastated forests, while others are caught up in a tangle of delicate strings.  Houses figure heavily in Casey’s work, although to read them as a response to the housing market collapse that caused our current economic woes seems too obvious (also she was making some of these in 2006).  The home seems to represent a symbol of stability, material comfort, and emotional refuge – its precariousness and destruction belies the loss of the sense of security and complacency that has characterized American culture since 2001.

Inspired b cartography and data visualization, Adriane Colburn’s delicate works of hand-cut paper are beautiful abstractions.  Drawn from dry, utilitarian sources, Colburn imbues a sense of wonder and curiosity to her works with a precise crafting sensibility.  There is something about the process of literally cutting out segments of the composition that makes these pieces more intriguing.  It sets up a dynamic between what is removed and what remains, laying bare both the spaces in between as well as underlying interconnexions.

http://www.rosenthalgallery.com/Shows.cfm
http://www.amycaseypainting.com/index.html
http://www.adrianecolburn.com/