Quiet as it's Kept: White Space at the Whitney

Rebecca Belmore, "ishkode (fire)" 

 -- By Tom Phillips

Two middle-aged white male art critics were coming down in the elevator after previewing the Whitney Museum of American Art's 80th Biennial.  With an air of befuddled irritation, one said to the other, "Quiet as it's Kept?  What does that mean?"  He was referring to the show's cryptic subtitle, which came from African-American co-curator Adrienne Edwards.  His friend had no clue.  

A third, older white male critic was standing nearby, and recalled for them the explanation Ms. Edwards had given in her pre-show remarks.  Her mother and her aunties used to say it all the time, she said--- to preface something widely known to be true, but not discussed in public. 

Something out of Nothing

 --  By Tom Phillips 

Still from For a Dance Never Choreographed, 2021. Photo: Stefano Croci 

For artists and introverts, the Pandemic of 2020-22 was a window of opportunity -- a chance to observe the world in the absence of normal human activity.  During lockdown and quarantine periods, as we walked through deserted streets or sat in empty public spaces, we could suddenly see form without function --- the structure of civilization without its uses.   

Italian artist-choreographer Luca Veggetti found himself stuck in his hometown of Bologna, Italy, when the pandemic struck in 2020.  So he made something out of nothing.  

Veggetti’s film For a Dance Never Choreographed (2021) takes place in an empty plaza designed by Japanese architect Isamu Noguchi, with a text of notes by Martha Graham for a dance she never made.  The movement of the earth around the sun is represented by dark shadows creeping over the plaza, and the only human presence is the sound of voices crying, whispering, gasping and groaning --- expression minus words.  The whole impression is made by taking things away, removing the contents of  civilization and examining its substrate of earth and bricks, light and shade, desire and discontent. 

The 22-minute film is now permanently on view in the digital collection of the Noguchi Museum in New York.  To watch, click here and follow the link to the museum.  

Now--- shhhh. 

-- Copyright 2022 by Tom Phillips