A few days before the 2012 Whitney Biennial opened, a web page with the museum's logo, template, language and a similar url (www.whitney2012.com instead of www.whitney.com) announced the institution's decision to give up on certain "generous corporate donations" by terminating its partnership with the Deutsche Bank and Sotheby's. According to this release by resigning from such benefits the Whitney was acknowledging and, especially displaying its role in upholding "a system that benefits collectors, trustees, and corporations at the expense of art workers" (I would add art lovers). The Whitney was taking a stance against the Deutsche Bank's corporate conduct (the bank just settled a legal dispute of $202 million for reselling knowingly shaky mortgages between 2007 and 2009) and deploring Sotheby's recent internal policies (the lock-out of its art handlers while making record profits and increasing its director's revenue from $2.4million in 2009 to $10.3 million in cash and benefits in 2011).
The world of art is a weird one that exists through the belief that certain "things" have magical-like forces over us. Often these magical qualities are explained by using intellectual concepts, discussing production prowess or expressing notions of aesthetics, while actually most of these "things with agencies" gain their aura through the tricky powers of financial markets. So for a museum to use its own existence to reveal the inner-workings of this weird cosmology - for instance museums may use artists because their sponsors need to sell things that may gain value if the museum uses this artist's work - was impressive, almost as impressive as good art. That excitement, however, lasted only until I learned the website was a hoax and experienced the Whitney biennial's overall blandness.
If that fake virtual press release was the most creative project to come out of the Biennial, I'm also excited to say that their hoax is part of a series of fake press releases and that their latest has just denounced the Whitney’s recent actual request for donations from blue-chip artists of work valued over $500,000.
If that fake virtual press release was the most creative project to come out of the Biennial, I'm also excited to say that their hoax is part of a series of fake press releases and that their latest has just denounced the Whitney’s recent actual request for donations from blue-chip artists of work valued over $500,000.
