Fewer (Visible) Boundaries for Independent

As you walk into the first floor of the Independent Fair at the X Initiative, you're greeted by the ubiquitous Bruce High Quality Foundation's contribution, an inflatable union rat armed with monotone invectives. "Do I have your attention?" He asks, which is indeed a lot to ask at an art fair. The rat typically signifies a labor strike; its objectives here were unclear. The piece, which obstructed views of Rikrit Tiravanija's mirrored ping-pong table, was among the least friendly things about the inaugural opening.
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Inside/Outside the Brucennial

The revolving and evolving group of young men who go by the moniker Bruce High Quality Foundation espouses the credo, "Professional Challenges. Amateur Solutions." The group's own forays into that most impractical of professions—the contemporary artist—have taken a highly un-amateur turn. BHQF has consistently positioned itself as a hybrid, showing work as a collective while directing the grassroots educational program BHQFU whose clarion call, "That's where U come in," resounds with put-on juvenilia. The line outside last night's Brucennial opening suggests both the nameless hoards of energized youth approaching Woodstock, and the Topshop opening last year, just a few blocks due East.
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Themes Abound for William Kentridge

Unfortunately (or presciently) timed to preview of the Whitney Biennial, the MoMA opened South African artist William Kentridge's Five Themes on Tuesday night to a more subdued audience. In the atrium of the second floor contemporary art galleries, Michael Stipe, Marina Abramovic and Anna Deavere Smith mingled under a ceiling conspicuously absent of Gabriel Orozco's monumental sculpture Mobile Matrix. The crowd trickled into the galleries at a pace that allowed for an almost solitary viewing of over 120 of Kentridge's works in a range of media including animated films, drawings, prints, theater models and books.
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When It Rains It Pours: Weather or Critique at the Whitney Biennial

The very best of the art world (and their plus-ones) showed up for the preview of the Whitney Biennial, 2010, on Tuesday night. The weather did not accommodate, although it gave guests plenty to lackadaisically complain about. The rain precipitated a line at the door, where bewildered staff doubled as bouncers, checking names on iPods and rejecting guests, even the elderly, as they rushed the entrance. The museum's elevators were blocked by the convergence of the line for the coat check and the line to the cocktail reception in the basement, making it impossible to move in any direction except for up—or for nervous artists to obtain a sip of water. Ascending five flights of stairs on foot, Jeffrey Deitch stopped only for a brief moment to catch his breath before he began to loop around the galleries.
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