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SUSAN STAMBERG, host:
Next, the art show that everybody loves to criticize: the Whitney Biennial. It started in 1932 as a showcase for current American art. But since then it's gotten freighted with the notion that somehow it reflects the pulse of the contemporary American arts scene.
The current biennial opened earlier this month at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. And as usual, there's been plenty of the good, the bad and the mediocre. Reporter Karen Michel saw the show and she found something of special interest.
KAREN MICHEL: As usual at the Biennial, the Whitney is filled with installations, rejections, paintings - though not so many of those - that the curators identify as art and that may cause visitors to wonder how that term applies.
For this biennial the curators expanded beyond their walls to the armory nearby in a former shoe shop two doors down.
Unidentified Man: Are we on the air?
MICHEL: The shelves that once displayed shoes are now filled with CDs, T- shirts, cables, a boom box. The stuff of a temporary radio station. And on its first day on air on Madison Avenue, it's a bit chaotic.
Unidentified Man: I mean, it's steaming but it's also,...