ABOVE: detail of Urs Fischer’s Intelligence of Flowers (foreground, the big holes) and Untitled, both part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial.

The 2006 Whitney Biennial opened in New York last week, to the usual critical chorus of “this is trash”/”this is insightful”/”this is just a bunch of wacky crap thrown together for no discernable reason.” Many things the Whitney may be, but it is seldom innocuous. The museum has also made some changes this year, bringing in non-American artists, giving the biennial its first title (the Truffaut-derived “Day for Night”), and giving over part of the show to the Wrong Gallery, which is guest-curating part of the exhibit.

Rather than, um, doing the work of actually summing up the critical reaction for you (which might require some actual reportage), we instead provide you with this handy rundown of what the world was saying about the WB06 over the last little while.

• Bloomberg uses the phrase “disaster has struck” in the second paragraph. Not a good sign. [BB]
• Artnet complains that it takes a full wall-length essay to explain the “Day for Night” name, and more verbiage for every artwork. [AN]
• The Village Voice calls it the “Liveliest, brainiest, most self-conscious biennial ever”. [VV]
• The New York Post sneers that it’s the “worst Whitney Biennials in decades—which is saying a lot.” Ouch. But who reads the Post, anyway? [NYP]
• Canada’s Globe and Mail sez: “What a bloody mess.” But also: “It adds up to something memorable: a disturbing reflection of a dark interlude in American history.” [GaM]
• And our winner, the New York Times: “The whole ethos of the show is provisional, messy, half-baked, cantankerous, insular — radical qualities art used to have when it could still call itself radical and wasn’t like a barnacle clinging to the cruise ship of pop culture.” Check Please. [NYT]

The biennial runs until May 28, 2006. Enjoy.