Whitney Biennial Brings Iraq "Peace Tower" to New York

Reuters

February 28, 2006

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A giant ``Peace Tower'' with panels by 200 artists likening the war in Iraq to Vietnam will be the first thing to confront visitors entering the leading showcase of contemporary American art, the Whitney Biennial.

``The anti-war sentiment among artists has been very strong, it's what we felt everywhere, whether we were at an artist's studio doing abstract paintings or whatever,'' said Chrissie Iles, co-curator of New York show which opens on Thursday at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

``It's just a general sense of anger that they feel, this sense of things falling apart,'' she told Reuters as the museum unveiled its Biennial 2006 to the media ahead of the opening. The show will run until May 28.

The ``Peace Tower'' was assembled by artists Mark di Suvero and Rirkrit Tiravanija in a recreation of a 1966 project in Los Angeles called ``Artists' Tower Against the War in Vietnam.''

Some of the panels are paintings; others resemble demonstrators' placards with messages such as ``Kill not,'' ''VietIraqNam,'' and -- incongruously -- ``Free beer.'' The 50-foot (15-meter) tower stands in a sunken courtyard and rises past the main entrance of the museum on New York's Upper East Side.

Philippe Vergne, who curated the Biennial with Iles, said the ``Peace Tower'' creators had tried to set it up during the 2004 Republican convention in New York but were unable to complete it.

``When we heard that, we approached them and asked if it was possible to do it here, since the war is not over,'' he said.

``It's not only Iraq, it's what's happening in Sudan, it's what's happening all over the world,'' Vergne added.

He said war was not so much the theme of the show -- which also includes work that is not directly political -- but rather an overall backdrop for contemporary art.

``It's not a theme, it's a reality. In every studio visit that we have done it was there -- anger and disappointment and melancholy,'' said Vergne, who spent more than a year with Iles traveling to find work for the Biennial.

Among the more overtly political work is a painting called ''Stop Bush'' by Richard Serra. It shows a hooded figure in an iconic image taken from photographs of Iraqi prisoners abused by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

A video installation called ``Shocking and Awful'' features films with titles like ``The World Says No to War'' and ``Empire and Oil.''

``We're not going to stop the war, but maybe it's going to force people to think a little bit differently and not take things for granted,'' Vergne said. ``If art can change the world for one person, that's good enough for me.''

Reuters/VNU