Quiet as It's Kept

 

"Terminal Bar" by Jane Dickson (2017)

“Quiet as its Kept,” the subtitle of the Whitney Biennial, is a colloquialism for recondite or sensitive knowledge--employed by Toni Morrison amongst others. Comorbidity is really the undercurrent with the election of 2020 and racial strife all reflected in the pluralism and eclecticism that characterizes the show. It may also be the excuse for the dilution which makes certain parts of the space seem like a Washington Square Park art fair. But here’s a quote from Jane Dickson, a realist painter whose “Fascination,” “Save Time” and “Motel 5 2019” add a tawdry glamour to one wall. “I chose to be a witness to my time, not to document its grand moments, but to capture the small telling ones, the overlooked everyday things that define a time and place. Everyone lives in a double helix of then and now, real experience entwining with past. Now is mostly unrecognizable as it’s unfolding.” Fair enough. Btw, Dickson's  “Terminal Bar," not one of the artworks on display, memorializes a famously violent transexual bar of the 70s. Little West 12th, right around the corner from the Whitney was once home to an all nude strip club and Hogs and Heifers, the motorcycle bar where women were separated from their bras. 

read "MAGA and the Coronavirus" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Make America Great Again" by Pussy Riot