The Brucennial Defends Nothing, Represents Everything

A general view of the Brucennial (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

Since it’s founding in 2001, The Bruce High Quality Foundation has been using performance and pranks to critique the art world. The collective prides itself on “developing amateur solutions to professional challenges.” I’ve admired their irony, even envied their sense of anarchy.

In 2010 BHQF brought us the Brucennial. Organized by the then 23-year-old Vito Schnabel, the son of the artist Julian Schnabel. The show opened the same night as the reputable Whitney’s uptown Biennial, and I was one in the crowd that packed the space on West Broadway (which was provided to the artists courtesy of art collector Aby Rosen). I was also one of the many who after a few beers, and joining in on the ‘fuck you,’ tore up my ticket to the Whitney and spent the cab money I we saved on pizza at Two Boots.

According to the news release for the 2010 show, “420 artists from 911 countries” were shown and it added that the artist were “working in 666 disciplines to reclaim education as part of the artists’ ongoing practice beyond the principals of any one institution or experience.”

Tonight the Brucennial returned for its second edition. I hustled into the show at 5pm to avoid the lines (which went around the block in 2010). I was met with the expected paintings stacked floor to ceiling, sculpture loading up floor, Tina Turner playing on the speaker (I actually didn’t expect that!) and beer in bins.

As anticipated, it’s an enormous show. The big names like George Condo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman,and Richard Price stand out. They’re squeezed between the hundreds of no-name (there isn’t a label in sight) under-employed, under-recognized artists, gallery interns and Sotheby’s art handlers. It’s a massive show. An incredible undertaking. Absolute in its inclusiveness. It about the passion. The real. Hunting for quality just seems so uncouth among a crowd where everyone was drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. The Brucennial defends nothing.