| The 46th Biennial Exhibition Media/Metaphor In our culture we are experiencing a shift in how we view the world. Everything, it seems, is traveling at the speed of light. Information comes from anywhere at any time. We are connected together and kept apartåboth physically and metaphoricallyåin ways that were never dreamed of fifty years ago. We are moving away from the land, where tiny changes are charged with meaning, to work and live in wired communities where change is taken for granted. Our icons are evolving, their foundations transformed, mediated by new tools that serve as mirrors, allowing us to see ourselves in new ways. Yet we still carry with us the memories and stories that bind the past and present.  Nan Goldin Media/Metaphor features new experiments by fifteen artists who live and work in the United States: Shimon Attie, Victor Burgin, Y. David Chung, Chuck Close, Sharon Daniel, Nan Goldin, Gary Hill, Vik Muniz, David Reed, Michal Rovner, Ben Sakoguchi, Lorna Simpson, Jennifer Steinkamp and Jimmy Johnson, and Lisa Yuskavage. Their work examines a variety of questions about how we see and construct our world from all the information we receive. How do the fundamental changes in how we live and communicate affect our perceptions, relationships, and actions? What role does technology play in refocusing and reshaping our ideas? How do new forms of expression emerge from traditions and how is our culture and the art it engenders affected by them? From its inception in 1907, almost one hundred years ago, the Corcoranås Biennial Exhibition has presented contemporary American painting, emphasizing its importance as a creative process within the context of American visual culture. In its previous forty-five installments the exhibition has examined this one expressive medium as it evolved through a century of explosive scientific, technological, and cultural growth. At the dawn of a new era the themes of the exhibition have been redrawn, to look at the art of our time at this key transitional moment. Each of the artists in Media/Metaphor looks to the traditions and language of art, building upon conventions to investigate their interests in groundbreaking ways. They use a variety of tools: paintbrushes, photographs, cameras, video, computers, imaging software, digital printers, and the Internet. Ideas and direction from one medium influence the others, meshing fluidly at times and colliding at others. Each of these artists confronts and refers to artistic traditions in a variety of ways. In doing so, they create new models that extend the meaning of painting, photography, and photo-based media into alternate spheres. Historic forms, such as the photographic daguerreotype, merge here with contemporary paintings, cinema-size multi-channel video projections, and the Internet to speak about the intricate relationships between traditional and contemporary media. Historically, the language of painting has been one of the principal means by which artists investigate new ways of seeing and representing the world. During the past several decades, some have moved away from the limitations of conventional media, trying to express their ideas in real space and time. On the one hand, painters have challenged their mediumås traditions by adopting some of the properties of cinema, working with combinations of still and moving images. Some move back and forth in their work between two- and three-dimensional depictions of space. Conversely, certain photographers and video artists create works that use some of the narrative strategies of painting, slowing down time to create panoramic histories or abstract fictions that use single or still images, sometimes of epic scale.  Lisa Yuskavage Media/Metaphor explores the current breakdown of traditional aesthetic barriers, and how this has prompted artists to use new technologies for expressive purposes. By combining painting, photography, video, installation, digital, and computer-related media, and establishing a dialogue between each form, the exhibition addresses both the nature of painting in a media-dominated environment and the transformational nature of media. For example, some artists use digital techniques to manipulate documentary video images, resulting in projections that refer, in look and scale, to painting. These projected images sometimes seem to hang like framed objects on the wall. Other artists use computers to animate abstract drawings, creating transformational, sensory environments that surround and envelop their audience. Media/Metaphor also shows some of the ways artists depict social, spiritual, and physical spaces through both traditional and new media. The materials and approaches of painting and of new photographic technologies (such as video and web-based art) have intersected, allowing artists to create original narrative forms. By integrating experimental narratives about social topics into theatrical or interactive presentations, some of these artists create universal images from personal or journalistic content. Some tell more personal stories, drawing on archives, photographs, or interviews. Some communicate metaphorically, directing actors in philosophical tableaux. Still others combine these strategies by collaging different media and styles. Even though they are defining innovative ways to express themselves, these artists have also considered many traditional aesthetic issues, such as representation, illusion, realism, and abstraction. Two central themes of this exhibition are place and time. These are like a crossroads where artists working in different media come together. For example, Michal Rovner, Shimon Attie, Chuck Close, Ben Sakoguchi, Nan Goldin, and David Reed piece together kaleidoscopic views of the world from fragments of memory and personal experience. They explore the meaning of åplace,å whether it represents an actual landscape or a fictional space. Gary Hill, Victor Burgin, David Chung, Jennifer Steinkamp and Jimmy Johnson, and Sharon Daniel have each used time-based media such as video and interactive computer technologies to engage viewers in both narrative and non-linear meditations. Storytelling is also found in the paintings and photographic works of Vik Muniz, Lorna Simpson, and Lisa Yuskavage. From these themes, each of the artists in Media/Metaphor is creating new models that extend the meaning of painting, photography, and photo-based media such as video, computers, and the Internet. They use these tools interchangeably and change, in some ways, has become their new medium. To document this project, the Corcoran has developed an interactive website instead of a traditional publication. This online forum provides information about the exhibition, artists, and programs related to the 46th Biennial Exhibition. It will continue to evolve for the duration of the project, allowing writers to respond to new work created for the exhibition, and the museum to document on-site installations. Visitors may also post comments and engage in a dialogue about the art. The Biennial website is available both in the exhibition galleries and online at www.corcoran.org/biennial. Philip Brookman Senior Curator of Photography and Media Arts |
Media/Metaphor
December 9, 2000
to March 6, 2001
Corcoran Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC