Whitney Biennial well worth the visit

New York City's Whitney Museum features a biennial exhibition of contemporary art. This year's pieces range from a modern interpretation of Titian's "Venus of Urbino" to flashing lights in the restrooms -- modern art at its finest.

This popular exhibit is open until May 30th, and while the lines may be long, they are worth the wait to see the current works of over 100 American artists.

There is a lot one can gain from seeing the Whitney Biennial exhibition, which has taken place at the Whitney every other year since 1973. The three curators, Chrissie Iles, Shamim Momin, and Debra Singer, bring in work that they see as reflecting life today and, in particular, as responding to the international political scene.

There is a heavy emphasis on installation art, video and photography as well as painting, drawing and sculpture, and the enormous collection takes up the majority of the museum's space, spilling into Central Park.

The fourth floor of the exhibit is the strongest. It contains two haunting paintings by Cecily Brown, whose work often strongly suggests a sexual quality. "Black Paining" depicts an abstracted woman lying naked on a white bed in a manner that imitates Titian's "Venus of Urbino." Brown's woman lies with her left hand casually touching herself between her legs, much as Titian's does, but in Brown's version, the woman looks up at the ceiling while Titian's looks straight out at the viewer -- an interesting difference. Above the bed is a black background with circular white splotches of paint. It is unclear what they are -- perhaps they are flowers or stars.

Emily Jacir's work is especially poignant. She visited Palestine, and used her American passport to perform tasks that Palestinians, who had had their movement restricted by the Israeli government, requested her to do. The result is a series of poignant photographs with explanations in both Arabic and English. Jacir did things like visit the grave of a woman's mother and pay a man's phone bill at a post office that he was not allowed to visit due to his nationality. The work is upsetting because it shows how difficult even everyday life can be in the Middle East, though Jacir neglects the difficulties that Israeli citizens face in their lifestyle of constant anxiety.

Katy Grannan, another of the artists on display, put an ad in a local paper offering a small compensation for models that allowed them to choose their outfit and how they posed. She photographed her subjects who responded to her ad in natural settings in upstate New York. The results show four people, all scantily clad and seductively posed.

Erick Swenson's three-dimensional sculpture "Untitled 2001" shows a hairless white buck in the middle of a Persian rug with its head bent forward as it rubs its antlers on the ground. Swenson created the Persian rug by screen printing a design he made on a computer onto a piece of resin, and the sparsely presented sculpture is presented in the middle of a room of the museum, with velvet sheddings lying shriveled on the rug.

The piece represents a buck's ritual of shedding its velvet lining from its antlers to prepare itself to fight with other bucks, but in essence, everything about this composition is false. A buck would not complete his ritual on a Persian rug, and rugs are not normally manufactured in such an unusual manner.

The art even manages to follow the visitor to some unexpected places, including the stairwell and the bathroom. Julianne Swartz's installation of plexi-glass tubing brings the dialogue and music of "The Wizard of Oz" to all who put their ears to the open ends along the stairs, and Jim O'Rourke created an installation entitled "We're All in This Together" in the men's and women's rooms. Blue, green, purple, and pink lights glow while low music hums in the background, creating an altogether different bathroom experience.

It is important to take the time and experience the installations many artists have put together for the show. One room, "Assume Vivid Astro Focus 8, 2004," was created as a joint project between artist John Connelly and music group Les Super Elegantes. Outside of the chamber, Fred Tomaselli's large scale photo collages hang on the walls, made of images of leaves, pills, body parts and other objects which are all assembled to resemble colorful beaded curtains, creating a psychedelic atmosphere.

Once one steps inside the room, the visitor is transfixed. The room is covered with a collage of seemingly mismatched images -- a huge Buddha head, 1950s swing dancers, large images of random people. These images are shown under bright neon colored lights which flash around the room while a soundtrack plays, alternating upbeat hip hop with slow and somber alternative rock. In the center, a winding staircase lined with neon lights climbs right into the ceiling, though it nearly trips the many people who encircle the room with their heads up, observing all the room has to offer without looking where they are going.

On the whole, the Biennial is a strong and extensive showing of current American art. The trick is paying attention to what interests you and keeping an open mind, because otherwise the enormous collection can be overwhelming.