When you walk into a Northwest Biennial, what are you expecting? The best of the Northwest? A comprehensive summing-up of Northwest art?
The answer, say the curators of Tacoma Art Museum’s Ninth Northwest Biennial, is neither. What you should be getting is just an initial suggestion of where Northwest art is right now. And with this Biennial, just opened, they’re finally achieving that goal: a tight, unified exhibition that creates an aesthetic without overwhelming.
It’s taken awhile. Senior curator Rock Hushka has been whittling away at the numbers: From the gargantuan days of 90 artists in the 2001 Biennial and 77 in 2004, he came down to 41 last year. It was still way too much, crammed into the huge gallery like a baroque banquet hall. This year, he and co-curator Alison de Lima Greene, curator of contemporary art and special projects at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, have come down to a shocking 24 artists. Shocking, partly because of the 543 applicants but also because of the fact that a mere 24 artists can so eloquently outline the shape of a regional art consciousness.
There’s the variety of media, for a start. While the show’s heavily weighted, like last year’s, towards two-dimensional work, it’s great to see some glass at last (Debora Moore’s Dr. Seussian vegetation, dripping with orchids) and large public installations (Susan Robb’s insidiously swaying, enormous black plastic Toobs, here represented in video.) There’s the composite digital photography of Isaac Layman, jewelry of Sarah Hood, fluorescent light sculptures of Tannaz Farsi.
More importantly, though, there’s a spectrum of approaches and ideologies that nevertheless share certain qualities: environmental concern, formal carefulness, subtlety. Whether these are “Northwest” qualities is hard to say (even for Hushka and Greene, who avoid over-categorizing, thank goodness.) But they certainly make for good art.
There’s the exacting skill of painters like Robert Jones, with abstracted, textured oils, and Margie Livingston, whose expert handling of light and color intercepted by curving, rhythmical strokes takes your breath away. (She can also do it with charcoal.) Jack Daws’ ironic, golden, patinaed penny is displayed perfectly in an oversize Lucite case (though text explanation of the penny’s circulation history would have been even funnier.)
There’s the romantic restraint of Michael Brophy’s painted memory fragments, the layered depth of Denzil Hurley’s dark windows, the supreme uselessness (in the best sense) of Linda Hutchins’ hypnotizing curved lines, engraved on the gallery wall with a silver spoon. Zhi Lin makes a subtle social commentary with a delicate ink-wash landscape while disturbing miniscule psychologies play out on Rick Araluce’s tiny stage sets.
And, like last year, there’s a tongue-in-cheek homage to the Rhodes “Wave” in the courtyard: huge fluffy clouds of plastic boat wrap, courtesy of Stephanie Robison. (The rather awkward modernist cranes could have been left out.)
Hung sleekly along the wall just under eye level, the gallery works talk to each other through texture, line and meaning. There’s enough space that artists can present in different voices, without a Tower of Babel drowning everything that’s said. And for the viewer, there’s enough to spur thought without getting exhausted halfway through.
There’s certainly plenty more good Northwest art that isn’t in this TAM gallery. But that’s not the point. The point is that by such strong selection, Hushka and Greene have put the strengths and idiosyncrasies of regional art into the spotlight. It’s a clarity of vision that proves the worth of this Biennial as something more than just a summing-up.
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568
What: Ninth Northwest Biennial
Where: Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. third Thursdays, noon-5 p.m. Sundays through May 25
Admission: $7.50 adults; $6.50 seniors, students, military; $25 families; free for 5 and younger; free on third Thursdays
Information: 253-272-4258, www.tacomaartmuseum.org
