Daniel Johnston has been selected to show his visual art in the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York City.
The Whitney Museum of American Art has announced details of its 2006 biennial. Titled "Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night," Mar. 2-May 28, 2006, the show is organized by Whitney curator Chrissie Iles and Walker Art Center deputy director and chief curator Philippe Vergne.
Taking its title from François Truffaut’s 1973 film, the biennial "explores the artifice of American culture. . . the irrational, the religious, the dark, the erotic and the violent" (Iles) and "a space between pre- and post-modernist parameters -- somewhere between day and night, between the history of forms and the forms of history" (Vergne). "In this twilight zone," Vergne intones, a bit more comically than he may have liked, "many things are called into question or obscured."
Daniel Johnston will be represented by his quirky cartoon drawings. (The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary chronicling Johnston's struggle with both fame and manic depression, is scheduled for release by Sony Pictures Classic at the end of March.)
The Biennial, which in the last decade has grown increasingly international in scope, is a major boost for artists' careers. This edition seems likely to generate the usual excitement among the chattering class.
