If art possesses a State of the Union, it is the Whitney Biennial. Every other year, the museum assembles an enormous collection of works – paintings, photography, films, installations, sound mixes, and the like – and retrofits its otherwise drab five-story exhibition space into a castle of self-reflective panache. This year’s theme is, supposedly, politics.…

In December, Zachary Woolfe ’06 wrote a very personal review of “Rent,” the movie adapted from the hit Broadway musical, in these pages. When I read Woolfe’s review, I was struck by his honesty about his sexuality insofar as it influenced his critique of the film. Woolfe’s central argument regarding the movie was that it…