Looking at artists, theres some interesting theme that we all hit on. But yeah, this is the result, the critical push back that is showing the binal. Rose are you going to report on chawment change and a whitney binal when we continue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Global Warming and its effects made head lines this week. A new United Nations report by the Governmental Panel on Climate Change outlaws a global threat to health, economic prosperity, food and water. Chairman of the panel said nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by impact of Climate Change. A growing Scientific Consensus says the rigs of Global Warming are not a problem for the future, theyre with us already. Joining me from college town Princeton University michael mann. Here in new york Jeffrey Sachs the director of the Earth Institute of Columbia University and also Michael Oppenheimer a professor at prime stop and one of the main authors of the icct study. Please to do have all of them here. I said to jeffrey when he sat down its worse than we thought. And he said you can be its true. The piece that said ice caps are melting. Sea ice in the arctic is collapsing, Water Supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying and going extinct. Oceans are arising at a pace that threatens coastal oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorbed co2 and organic matter frozen in soils is not melting. Whats going on . Whats going on in fact is in a way somewhat predictable because in the science community, these facts have been known for at least a couple decades. Not everyone but the dangers have been understood. It has been true that the more refined the measurements you can, the more careful the observations, the more the risks have been confirmed. And as the World Economy has continued to grow, even we see a crises trying to continually grow rapidly using more and more energy. The pace of human induced Climate Change. The pace of Carbon Dioxide entering the atmosphere has gone up. And so when you look at the trajectory not only are the impacts evident already, not only is the direction risky, but were on a trajectory for the 21st century that if we dont change course is absolutely reckless, mindboggling in how reckless it is. And yet we cant seem to get off that path yet. There are two new facts that are notable. One is the observation we can now tie a decrease in crop yields in much of the world to Climate Change. Thats new. We might have expected it in the past but the new studies suggest weve seen it already and there are far more places where crop yields decreased due to Climate Change than places where they increased. Rose consequences for poorer nations. The potential future consequences are immense. Usually we have to expect an increase, an increase in crop yields by 10 or 15 perdecade just to keep up with population growth. And with the graduate change in lifestyle in middle Income Countries like china where theyre adopting our sort of semi glutness eating habits where they get away from grains and eat the stuff higher on the food chain. As that happens you have to keep up by increasing crop yields. Whats happening now is crop yields have actually leveled out, even in the developed countries, the rich countries. And so globally were just threatening that or really fall behind. That means people are going to fall through the cracks, you can have more malnutrition and eventually more starvation. Rose michael, what would you add. Well you know, this is actually a good example of how uncertainty does not weigh in our favor. Sometimes you hear the argument that well theres uncertainty about the science. Why should we act to reduce our emissions. But heres an example of where in the previous assessment, there was an estimate that we would actually see gains in agricultural yields. In part, because of mid latitude regions, regions at higher latitudes with warmer summers, longer growing seasons. You might imagine you could see increased agricultural yields. One of the things weve seen over the past few years is that those sorts of gains can we off yet by weathering drought that weve seen in the u. S. By recent summers, damaged by extreme weather. The latest report actually concludes that we can see an impact of this extreme weather in terms of losses with regard to agriculture, impacts on human health. So heres an example of where yes, theres uncertainty but it turns out the uncertainty is resolving itself in terms of the problem being worse than we thought, not better. Not surprising in one sense that our systems, the way we grow food and the seeds that we use and the methods that we use for planting are based on a given climate pattern. And that is changing. In many places where ive been working in the last 10 or 15 years, this is startling in front of ones eyes. Even before the report the number of famines facing already fairly dry places becoming desperately dry. Higher temperatures meaning that the soils dry out of moisture because theres more evaporation taking place. And what i would stress, even beyond the very dire superb report, i think its excellent in every way. The capacity of our societies to address this is actually less than the report suggests because the report talks about the potential for zillions. I see before my eyes for every day the potential for collapse. Let me bring that home. Rose let me make sure i understood. I was right with you when you said the capacity to respond to this is worse. Sometimes economists, my own tribe sometimes says well, okay, its a bad shock but were creative, resilient, well adapt. But sometimes you dont get adaptation, you get collapse. Even from a relatively modest shock. If you take it as an analogy, because these are how complex systems work. When Lehman Brothers failed, you could say okay thats a bank going under. All of a send the whole World Economy was in deep crises. When you have a drought, you say okay thats a drought, well bring in a little food aid. But the drought can turn to conflict. It can turn to war. All of a sudden you have a massive amplification problems rather than adaptation. And this i think is a big risk. Economists and others say okay yes its bad but well find a way. That may be true, but we also may find a way to disaster sooner than we find a way to solutions. Let me bring that home. Those are very good points. In new york city during Hurricane Sandy which wasnt caused by Global Warming although it may have been exacerbated by Global Warming, particularly the damage. We saw a phenomena of Network Failure which happens globally now but what happens in new york city the electricity went down so the Emergency Services went down so the subway went down. So you happened people stuck on the 12th floor of Public Housing and you had a people in hospital who had to be carried out. That kind of systemic failure is one of the predictions of this report. And the other thing you see goes to jeffreys other point. We fell way behind in our ability to cope with that tragedy. This is a city where the mayor had spent years setting up committees to study this phenomenon. Global washing how to prepare. We had not done nearly enough. We had done some simple and cheap things like rising the railway levels to keep them from flooding. Taking the electricity substations out of cities near the rivers. We didnt do the easy things. Or the backup generators out of hospital. Thats out at the base. Thats a no brainer. We dont even do the no brainers. Rose are we now planning to do it because of what we witnessed during Hurricane Sandy. More planning. With you in this city we have a new mayor and i dont know what hes going to do. I would like to see that. Rose go ahead, michael. So i think this is an excellent example of Hurricane Sandy or super storm sandy depending on what you want to call it. First of all i would differ with michael just little bit. I think we can say with some confidence that Climate Change did absolutely worsen certain impacts. That 13 foot record surge at battery park, a foot of that was due to global sea levels. We can say that with confidence. Right. Now that event cost us 65 billion i think is the current estimate. While theres been a lot of emphasis on the threat to food, fresh water, land, theres also a very real threat were already seeing to our economy. Climate change and extreme weather that may be linked to Climate Change damages from that amount to Something Like 1 billion in global domestic product a year already. And that is projected to increase greatly in the future if we continue on the course that were on. Rose it also leads to the possibility of conflict over land or conflict over circumstances produced by the scarcity. And sometimes its just unbelievable. Maybe its believable but its sometimes so odd how these things play out. I happen to be for the u. N. In brazil at the beginning of last week. Brazil has a major drought right now the kind of disturbance ones expect with more and more frequency. This could be an example of that. The water level in the is an pow Low Reservoir is down to Something Like 15 where it should be. Real christ. So with everybody sounding the alarm making savings, no, nothing like that because they have the world cup coming up, they have elections at the end of the year. The politicians are terrified even to mention any change of rationing or response. People are just sitting there. Are we really going to go right over the cliff without governments doing anything. So one of the fundamental problems is our political systems are completely mistimed with these crises. We need leaders who are going to lead on this. This is one that people feel disempowered about. They cant imagine solving the problems themselves. We need leaders going to get out there and actually lead. We started to see that from the Obama Administration but the cows congress is hopeless. With the conservative side bob inglis coming forward and saying look we can have a debate what policies to put in place to deal with this problem. He advocates for conservative free marketbased approaches to pricing carbon. I think thats great. We can have that debate. What we cant continue to debate is whether the problem exists. Whether the risk exists. What this latest report tells us is that this isnt some far off future potential problem, this is something thats hitting us now and is going to get a lot worse if we couldnt do something about it. Rose you are much closer to this than i am. Even some people who are climate deniers because theyre hung up about the manmade aspect of it, are looking at the consequences of looking at whats happening in the arctic and are saying yes, something is going on. Every time one of these reports comes out, you convince a few more people who are die in the wool opponents. There are hard core who are never going to be on that. There are complex with some people, they want to stay away from the crowd and some people its economic self. And the point is you cant wait for everybody to agree. You know the Climate Change were experiencing now is essentially baked in. That is we cant do much about whats going to happen over the next 10 or 20 years no matter what we do in emissions except try to protect ourselves, have better coping mechanisms. When we dont act now when reducing emissions a lot theres going to be hell to pay for particularly the next generation. This is our kids were talking about. Rose beyond leadership, which is an important and essential fact, what else has to happen to create the kind of urgency and fear thats a call to action . I think in addition to fear, we need to hear more solutions. And we also havent heard enough of. So fear can open the eyes for at least a moment but it can also get people to tune down or even tune out sometimes. What i think would be really necessary and when i said about the u. S. Government, i hope, id like to see some clear leadership about the things to do. Because actually, there are a lot of specific things that will make a huge difference, different ways to produce energy is number one on the list. We have vast potential in the United States for alternative energy sources. Not just the hide row fracking which is the big one right now but wind power, solar power, carbon energy, we have rose are they price competitive. They certainly are close in some places, or even now. But with a little bit of Technology Investment and learning curves, they will be. My University Just installed a whole raft of solar portable panels plus in new jersey even all the circumstances it was the Cheapest Energy to buy at the margin. Those examples exist. Price competitive depends on what one means. If it means avoiding disaster then certainly without question. But i do know what you mean, you mean at market terms right now. The answer is close but they will become not only closer but in certain niches the lower cost sources if we work at it just a little bit. The u. S. Government have put forward, has never put forward an Energy Strategy. This is kind of remarkable. We dont have a scenario. Rose thats what they used to say when dick cheney was Vice President because of his own Energy Running haliburton. But they still say that. Even now after six years, going on six years of the Obama Administration, there is no Energy Strategy. There is none. What we need right now is an Energy Strategy that takes into account the realities of todays report, which says we need to keep the temperature increase below a one more degree rise from today basically or two degree centigrade rise compared to the preindustrial period. And in order to do that, that means we cant be emitting Carbon Dioxide at the rate we are doing and therefore all of the Major Economies of the world need to change course. If our government said, okay how can this be done. And if china and European Union and others said how can this be done, we actually realized there are a lot of ways that this can be done but we need a strategy. That would give some hope i think to the American People. I was struck by your previous guest, when he was talking about the sort of the marketplace with robotics in the u. S. Right now is leading the world with respect to robotics technology. And how is it that we can lead the world in high tech areas like robotics and so many other areas of technology and be falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to renewable energy. Because china and india and many other developing nations are moving ahead of us in terms of the infrastructure, the investment that theyre putting into, renewable energy. They understand the economy of the next century is a clean economy. We can move ahead but we need support from our leaders in this government. The reason thats happening is because in the u. S. To really get something done along those lines you have to put a price on carbon. You need to make it expensive to emit carbon either through attacks or through a cap and tradeable permit systems. And the politics are just poison in this country right now. So thats very hard to do. But you know and it may be that chinas going to save the world. Chinas sort of taken over voltacic. Mark. If you wanted to install solar cells on your roof the major cause isnt the cells the major cause is all the other stuff, getting the permits, getting the installers, pouring the struts, etcetera. That means we made immense progress and we need to keep pushing. Rose let me make sure i understand. The idea for a while was end why you and china are saying dont judge us by the same metrics because you already had your industrialation and we havent. And so we should be held to a different standard. Is that argument no longer articulated by them because they realize the consequences are the pollution they have. They still use the same argument but on the other hand theyre looking to their own behavior. Chinas got terrific exposure to Climate Change and the government knows it. China has a terrible pollution problem. In the long term theyre looking for ways to get out from under the heavy coal dependency. It could be an intermediate source would be natural gas. They have a lot of it deep. Other countries are thinking about it and we wish the u. S. Would grab the leadership because the u. S. Sort of alone has both the political clout and the resources to make this transition happen quickly. Rose and to develop an International Agreement that would move forward. I think that looking for a strong International Agreement with binding limits is not going to happen soon. I think there will be some progress in paris at 2015, but really the solution of this problem for the time being is going to come from bilateral agreements, more multilateral agreements. We have 188 countries in the room which is what the negotiations had. Its hard to make progress. I know that would get you. Im not quite at that point. I think whats important to know is that since the world has failed repeatedly to find an agreement, few years ago, they said this time we got to do it with a date. Paris december 20 15. So there is a rendezvous right now that is on the calendar. Whether we reach a serious agreement is of course an open question. It will be a global summit of heads of state at the United Nations september this year that is preparatory to trying to reach a major agreement in december 2015. Rose this is in the general assembly. Thats right. The fact of the matter is the reason that i hope that michael is wrong though, hes right about so many things. I dont believe that a piecemeal approach can have the deep transformative effect that we need in the world. The truth is were on a trajectory as this report makes clear. It blows the world out of the water. It may be a 4 degree centigrade rise compared to where we are right now by the end of the century. And if you look at the report, every red light is flashing on feed supply, on safety, on storms. This is a disaster to current trajectory. When you look at the time that we have to get this right, its extremely short because as michael said, the infrastructure how we produce energy how we drive cars how we build buildings, how we heat and cool buildings and so forth takes decades actually to change course. So were just at the end of being able to hold to the level that the world promised itself. I would say december 20 15 is the last chance to keep that 2 send grade limit. If we dont, its gone then were talking about something beyond anything safe. Then were talking about horrible damages but how horrible. I agree but we said the same thing in copenhagen in 2009. Im saying we need a plan b we shouldnt put all our eggs in that one basket. Well if you miss your exit ramp, you dont just continue down the highway for another 50 miles you take the next exit ramp. So if we missed the 400 ppm, were basically there already. Then we go for 450 ppm. If we miss that we still got to take the next exit ramp. The problem is that road is not a straight road. Its sloping farther down steeper and steeper. And the farther down we go the more we commit to. Potentially dangerous and impacts on our planet. Rose let me talk about president obama when he came to washington in 2008, didnt he list as one of his primary objectives beyond education among other things planet. He did. And he put everything into a piece of legislation in 2009, this cap and trade, the wax and marky deal it was called. I thought it was not an adequate approach at the time because rose didnt go far enough. No, it was just very insider play. It was all very political transactional, will give you a little bit here, well give you a little bit there. I once had a several hour briefing how they were going to get the votes in every district in every state. It seemed to me outlandish actually. What i suggested in 2009 with no discernible effect was make a strategy which shows how we can have a low Carbon Economy and be competitive that takes us out 20, 30, 40 years to show the American People what this is all about. Instead they went deeply technocratic. This cap and trade, nobody understood it except our energy bills are going to go up. Were not doing that. And so i think there was a very unfortunate, however one judges outcome which is that effort collapsed and then with the loss of the house and 2010, basically this has been off the front burner since then. Now the administration is waking up, secretary kerry has made a lifetime of his political career saying this is important and hes right bit. They know the paris negotiations are coming up. They are trying to bring it forward. Its awfully late in the day but they should still make that extra push but im still waiting for the u. S. Government to say here is our plan. That they havent said and they havent shown us. What theyve done recently which is unprecedented in the last 15 years on this issue is to not just do Climate Change for a day and then forget it. They have a week or two weeks where the president will make a species, kerry will make a speech and theres initiative rolled out. Lets the way you have to do these thing. Just like any serious big time political issue. You have to get on it, focus on it, get the publics attention on it and stay there. You cant do it for a day and then forget about it. There is some indication that they intend to stay the course on this one. There are regulations that they can could without congress,s a good start. The question is what happens when the administration runs all of all its Regulatory Authority or it gets to, you know, 2016 and theres a new administration going to come in. The job will only be 10 done by then, what do we do then. We need leaders continuing in congress and in the next administration we realize this isnt as important as national defense. It is national defense. Rose emission standards. One thing, im told that in china someone recently visited with the president there xi jinping said, he said to him, this friend of mine, the two most important problems i face. One is the perception of corruption which is being heavily investigated now in china. And second, pollution. Those are the two things i have to deal with in order to be able to have the kind of growth that i think is essential in china. This is correct. But interestingly there are two ways to deal with the pollution. The pollutions first order politics. You cant breathe the air in beijing. Its absolutely horrible. But there are two ways to deal witness. One is the deep way which is were going to get out of coal or were going to use coal in completely different technology. Rose you can do that without damaging theres a trajectory they could devise. Of course theyre going big for 23450 clear, they have alternatives. Energy efficiency could play a very big role. Theyre looking at that. The alternative charlie, is to say well move our industry out to the far west away from the people but continue to use the cole. Or another technology is to pacify the coal. What that means is gas that can burn cleaner but thats more Carbon Dioxide. You have choices to address the pollution that wont solve the climate problem or to address the pollution in ways that also solved the climate problem. You can do a use jujitsu on it. Rose last word michael. You can see the glass being half empty or half full. They are already doing renewable energy. The Chinese Government is actually having a serious discussion about instituting a carbon tax. They recognize, the Chinese Government recognizes the degradation, the damages that the emissions of carbon is doing and they recognize that has to be taken into account in any long term coherent viable Energy Strategy. In that sense, theyre away head of us because we have a u. S. House of representatives which has a Science Committee that is led by politicians who reject the notion of Climate Change even exists. And we cant have a serious discussion about policy as long as weve got a congress, congressional leadership in the house that takes an antiscientific stance when it comes to issues like Climate Change. Weve got to move pass that. Rose michael mann thanks very much, Jeffrey Sachs and mike oppenheimer. Rose every two years they ask this question what is the contemporary art in the United States now. The 2014 biennial exhibition features the work of nearly 100 artists and includes painting, sculpture, photography, film, dance and performance. It will be the last biennial to take place at the museum Marcel Brewer design space before it moves to its new downtown location. Heres a look at this years exhibition. Rose this year the whitney took the unusual step of inviting three curators from outside the museum to organize the binal. Michelle is a professor of the Training Department at the school of Art Institute of chicago. And we have the cheap curator of media ask performance alter at the museum of modern art. Joining me is two artists whose work is featured this year. She transnormed a section of the Museum Fourth Floor gallery into an enormous cam russ. And his video series desire uses 3d animation and Digital Space to explore memory and personal his treatment i am pleased to have all of them here at this table. Welcome. Really its a pleasure to have you. Heres the calendar and heres the catalog for the biennial for 2014. The significance of this being the last biennial at madison avenue. What is that . Whats the significance as it affects the biennial. Its interesting if you look at the catalog you just showed. Actually the patterns on the cover are rubbing from the building. I think almost every artist, were all intrigued about what it meant to be leaving this really landmark building on the Upper East Side before the whitney goes downtown. And so there are several projects in the show that respond directly to the architecture. Several artists working in sound who wanted to give the building a voice. Generally i think a desire to engage with the building but not necessarily treat this as a kind of funeral for the whitney and for the future itself. Rose what is contemporary art in the United States . Do we come away with an answer to that . No, no. And you wont in future biennials. Rose why do we ask the question. Its a good question to ask. Its a good exercise in terms of measuring the health of contemporary art. I often thought of my role as curator theres no such thing as contemporary art. Its a fiction in the mind of everybody at this table. Everybody who has a buyin, its a fantasy in terms of who is participating and how they are participating. What im doing is mapping the best i can in terms of looking at artwork, looking at artists. There are interesting theme that we all hit on. But yes, this is the result, the critical push back like the biennial get. Its the result of disappointment. Everybody has their idea of what contemporary art should be. Rose the ideas so big that everybody has thats right. If one is an artist, one envisions themselves in part of that narrative. And so if theyre not in it or if theres a contact that theyre pushing at, theres profound disappoint and kind of a critical rankor at this time. Theres more performance based work and more video work. Michelle is a painter and there are some strong women making strong paintings. Rose well come back to that. What does it mean to an artist. To be in the biennial. Rose yes. Its an overwhelming experience and stressful, mostly preparing for it. But its been significantly wonderful to have my work in the company with such great minds and talent and has taught me a lot. Rose same thing . Yeah. I mean, its a huge arne to have sort of a voice on that level and to be in the company of all these other incredible makers. My feel is more ambivalent about it. I think that biennials are make as michelle was saying, theyre sort of, they set out to do this thing that cant really be done and as much as im really happy to be a part of it and have a chance to participate you sort of realize there isnt really, i dont know, im aware of like other artists that are equally talented that are making incredible work that arent included. For me rose that are a lot of participating artists. There are many great artists in the show. I think this group of artists is very, really shows a certain kind of multiplicity. Theres a lot of artists working across mediums. Rose theres no one definition of where contemporary art is going. Yeah. I think this biennial kind of shows the range of making and how writing is part of it and performance is part of it. And many artists that might be grounded in one medium are also working across several different mediums. Theres a kind of interdisciplinary approaches. I think thats present and maybe it arrives at a kind of wisdom. But as an artist, i have a ton of friends who are fantastic artists who arent in the show. I wish they all could be. Rose let me talk about women and what you want to do on the floor. Right. So i think what we should say charlie is that this exhibition for the 77th biennial is each curator gets a floor. So im on a floor. Thats important. The fourth floor has tall ceilings, and that was important for me to use that space and to look at large scale abstract painting, particularly by women artists. Obviously to deal and look at power issues in relationship to the language. But also juxtaposing that painting with what we would have call craftbased work or work that traditionally is located in the craft well. Sheila hix comes to mind and even joel comes to mind. Starting to look at the object of painting itself and not just, its context that being a political context. Rose lets take a look, we have some slides in here of the images. Number one this is from sterling ruby. Tell me what that represents for you. These are large faces. These are extraordinary by the fact that what you see in these faces are the failure of past ceramic work all kind of tossed into these large vessels, primordial stools. This is the beginning of things that is quite abject thinking about the baseness, the weight of ceramic itself and of clay. Theyre not even ceramics at this point, its preceramics. Rose the next one is right his extra curtains, you see at the bottom the hand tools. Joel is in los angeles and hes been living with hiv for many years. And these are glorious things. The fact he can actually work with his hands and create these kind of beautiful spectacles, celebration of life, of materiality. You know, yeah. Rose the next final one is sheila hix. Sheila, yes. Rose tell me about that. Well sheila, were telling stories here. Sheila was at yale, a student at yale working with albert in the 50s as a painter. And she moved from painting, the language with authority to fiber, something having to do with womans work. We can see this work being brought into bigger conversation in terms of maybe we can call the contemporary avantgarde or contemporary art. Rose and then theres donna nelson. Donna, yes. So off the fall. Theres a reference to the backside of the paintings being the back of the bra strap. So kind of a beautiful play in terms of front and back, in paint stains through both sides. Someone is working on the back while shes working on the front. Very performative. Rose were you in london for 10 years. 13 years. Rose does that change the way you see contemporary art. Absolutely. It changes the way i think about histories in new york, the history of whitney. The whitney is one of the museums i grew up going to and formed my ideas about art. I think the art world has changed radically. We all admit new york is no longer the center but Many International centers for the production and exhibition of contemporary art. Rose london. London, berlin. Saul paulo. One can even say glassco. Huge impact. Rose lets thank you about these images. One is i first came to her writing. Shes considered one of the most important living arab writers. But she had also been making paintings even before she began writing. Whats remarkable is she writes through paintings. Shes really inverting the logic how those two disciplines are kept distinct from one another. Rose the second is julie alt. Julie alt had an exhibition at the whitn in 19889 of a collective called group material. Politically engaged collective at the height of the culture wars in the late 80s. This uses, works from the whitneys collection and tries to reimagine a different history or a different trajectory for those works. Rose and the next one. This is a really interesting editorial collected from brooklyn. Theyre neither defined by themselves or the curators. This is around the garbage collection of pre 20th century art or furniture. What we think is happening to digital data as it becomes objects so theres a 3d scan or 3d printed scan of washington basin, a table. Youre asking really important questions about how we negotiate this divide between the virtual and real. Rose and then the next one is they are two artists living in los angeles. This is a project called relationship which is a photo diary that theyve been keeping as their relationship has evolved. Theyre both transgender. Zachary has been transitioning from male to female and he is from female to male. This is a culture a lot of he people dont understand. Rose hes been doing some photography. Hes been doing a very interesting project. An initiative at barneys has helped create looking at trans people and trying to create more positive images of them. Rose tell me about one, the camera obscure and how this idea came to be. I was interested in taking up the phenomenon and using it as a way to think about how we look and how we see, how we perceive the world. I think the sort of very simple gesture of putting an oculus in the window, up side down makes us reconsider everything about how we perceive the world. We have a sense of wonder about something that we just outside and took for granted. We see rea it in this way thats presented to you and it sort of becomes, opens up a society questions. Rose as you get used to the darkness your perception changes. Yes, very much so. Rose explain how the camera obscure works. Its actually a naturally occurring phenomenon through a small opening in a dark space. Light moves in and carries an image of the outside world. Its just a natural phenomenon. Rose its inverted. Thats because light is in a Straight Line so the sky ends up on the floor and the floor ends up. So its actually a very simple phenomenon thats been observed since prehistory. And what im really interested in is sort of how that phenomenon can be employed right now in a kind of contemporary setting that this kind of, it gives us a space and a time to think about how we look and how we perceive. And for me. Think of looking not only as an optical process. But something thats temporal and spacial and social. How we see things has to do with who we are and our perspective on the world. So having the space where you can slow down and not only look but think about how youre looking. Not just what youre looking at. But how your own process, how your own vision is changing, how things you assume arent quite the way you thought they are. So it becomes a kind of social space also where youre not only a witness but youre also an actor. Youre present in the room with other people so its a social space. You look at other people looking. So for me it also asks questions back to the rest of the show and to the building, to the situation youre in. Its a space thats neither a black box nor a white cube. Its not a neutral space. And its not an escapist space, its actually a space to really be present and to think about what youre looking at, how youre looking at it, how we see, how we relate to what we see. And what are sort of, all the associations. Rose its truly a combination. Because you look at sculptures, a space that makes you rethink where you are and how you see the world. Absolutely, thats a great connection. Its very spacial and the, you know, boyers building is almost asking for this. The way that he designed that window from the outside the room almost looks like a box camera. The window actually just out from the building and then is canted to the northwest across the grid of the city. I just feel like his architectures so specific and maybe this ties back to some of the things we were talking about, about what this biennial means in this building. Its not just that for many of us, i grew up in the city, i love that building. Its a place i learned about art. But boyer also really brought a certain kind of set of modernist ideas and ideals into that building. He wrote beautifully about why he design ited the way he d how he oriented it towards the avenue, the kind of majesty and seriousness of that building. The height, the very distinctive concrete gridded ceiling. And its a building with so much history. These are walls that tricia walked on. They actually walked the side of that building. Bob irwin did the beautiful scrim veil. So we all have associations, not only with shows weve seen there but with how artists actually used the fabric of this building. Its very imbedded in that space. You grew up in Columbia South carolina. Yes. Rose what brought you to art. Very good question. My mother. Rose really. Yes. Well, at sunday school i drew jesus the best. That was like my encouraging platform but it was my rationship with my mother. Shes been homebound for 16 years. I grew up watching her make schematic diagrams of common objects. And she would tell me that they were the purpose of them were patents for the Home Shopping network in qvc. I found that to be very braggable in second grade. I would say my mom is the next suzanne summers. Rose shes going to be so rich. None of that was true. She was sending those out to the companies but i dont think anything manifested. So living in her creative spirit in the living room made me learn how to draw so i can help her. Rose go ahead. Eventually i deviated from her making my own paintings and drawings. I went to boarding school for painting and full circle. After i got devastated with western paintings ideologies and felt like my own personal pathology was mythology wase that and i wanted to take photographs of her drawings and use it as very private observational art making tools. Thats when i began using high body because the body was the central subject that had nothing to do with the public which is art history in the institution. So it was a way for me to find a kind of agency as a creator. Eventually a lot of failure because thats important. I traced, i began figuring out ways to construct my mothers drawings. Her schematic drawings, her da vinci diagrams into performance arena in animation, the same tool they use to make toy story and avatar. And just the graphics. I found a way to kind of rearticulate the painting language that itches trying to get as a painter for 15 years through the animation and high body. Rose what is reassigned desire. It was a departure point from my previous videos. My previous videos were constantly referring to the didact particulars of family photography. There was so much politics and stuff. So reassigned desire was i feel like the word in the family of surrealism because youre trying to make something abstract concrete. So i wanted to do a series where the only rule was to find disparit archives and things that are completely in congruent and making them congruent. As a surrealist a person looks at sewing something together and they dont belong. Thats where all the politics come from, thats where you find my desire. I take those abstractions from my mother and make them into, make sense out of them. Whats so great about the piece at the whitney is that ive been doing like 12, i took so many residencieds and private barns in the middle of no where. My practice was heavily influence having me and my body and my camera and green screen. When i moved back to new york city i got so obsessed of performing on the Brooklyn Bridge and the one subways and the financial district. I was doing performance with the film crew. Rose this is some footage of the video series reassigned desire. You use everything, dont you. I do. Im an ingredient kid. Rose performance. 3d animation. I compare it to avery going back to his studio. Its just like doing a study on the public and bringing it back and making it bigger and more grand and thinking about now how to look push forward your observations into something personal. Rose when you see your floor your floor, are they connected in any way. Yes and no. What i think is really great about the format of this particular biennial. In the past they had multiple traders but they had all to, i think michelle and i came to different conclusions about certain ideas. Its really important to foreground that and suggest that there are are territorial points of view and institution is not this official voice. There is a wizard of oz, there is someone behind the curtain and i think we need to reveal that to the public. I think it really suggests the polyphonic voice of the United States at the moment where there are no easy answers to define contemporary art as you suggested. So the fact that an audience can pick and chose and make the connections they want to across the three floors thinking they have three very different perspectives. I think its exciting. Rose is it fair to say theyll come away with more questions than answers. Which i think is a good thing. The perspective has interesting questions. Rose what was the word you used. I went to my diction when you were talking about sort of early writing on, they write on top of it and that was a definition. Exquisite corpse. That was a serious game where one player would make a drawing and another player would add to that drawing until you create these corpses or bodies or cadavers that were produced. We use the metaphor of the layer cake for this show. There are definitely different parts that are somehow interconnected. But weve tried to stress that it was not a collaboration in the conventional sense but more of a conversation across the three floors. Rose are we seeing more female artists . Yes, sure. I dont think, yes, i think, yes. I think it has to do with the free market. Were talking about art fairs or biennials that are popping up everywhere that everything can come to market. So i dont think that unfortunately i dont think the art world or art worlds or institutions are setting out to represent more artists. I think its the economy that is creating the demand. Very cynical position but i really do think it is. The great result of that is were looking at more female artists, more artists of color. Are coming into the fore. Rose thats a good thing. Its a good thing. Its the other side of the coin. Rose thank you. Thank you, thank you. A pleasure. The Whitney Biennial 2014. The last one youll see at the building on madison avenue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org this is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and susie gharib brought to you in part by. Thestreet. Com. Featuring stephanie link who shares her investment strategies, stock picks and Market Insights with action alerts plus. The multi Million Dollar portfolio she manages with jim cramer. You can learn more thestreet. Com nbr. Heading to the hill, general motor will take a massive recall related charge in the first quarter. The announcement comes a day before its ceo faces congress. How did gm get to this point and what happens next . I think this extraordinary commitment is still needed and will be for sometime. With those words from janet yellen, stocks took off