Harmony Hammond at the Whitney Biennial

A wonderful paragraph, for a variety of reasons, from the review of the 2024 Whitney Biennial in the New Yorker by Jackson Arn entitled "The Whitney Biennial's taste for flesh." Posted March 22, 2024, to appear in the April 1 print edition:

By a close margin, the four fabric assemblages of Harmony Hammond are the fleshiest things in this show. They use a variety of materials to suggest a whole menagerie of bodies, from pimply-shiny to aged and chalky. Colors are subdued for the most part, and strategically so: when a touch of red shrieks out of the dirty white field of "Chenille #11," it almost hurts. Hammond has suggested that flourishes like this were meant to evoke "sexual brutality against women," but take a few steps back and marvel at how this only deepens her work's mystery -- if the red is brutality, what are the string, the smeared white, the grommets? Interpretation is interwoven with the sheer, thingy strangeness of the object, and can't be ripped out. Art like this is built to last, I would guess. But if you prefer your political messaging neat, no chaser, you are welcome to walk to the other end of the sixth floor, go to the terrace, and spend some time with Kiyan Williams's big dirt sculpture of the White House sinking into the ground, complete with upside-down American flag. There's a label in case you can't figure out what it means.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/the-whitney-biennial-art-review

Some of the reasons:

• descriptive words, rich and evocative
• I was lucky enough to spend time with Harmony Hammond when we were both active in the Queer Caucus for Art, an affiliated society of the College Art Association (now rebranding itself as simply CAA).
• particular memory of drinks and conversation after a caucus business meeting in Philadelphia when the last remaining folks in the hotel lounge were several older lesbians and me, and then we walked each other back to our hotels. The younger folks had gone off dancing.
• memories of visits to various Whitney Biennials; this one has just opened and runs until August so there's a chance I might get to the City to see it
• I actually said the word "chenille" today when a friend asked us what color we thought her sweater was. I asked about the material. "Is it chenille?"
• the ending of the paragraph