May 1977 proved to be an active month for the New York art world and its growing alternatives. The Guggenheim Museum mounted a retrospective of the color-field painter Kenneth Noland; a short drive upstate, Storm King presented monumental abstract sculptures by Alexander Liberman; and the Museum of Modern Art featured a retrospective of Robert Rauschenberg's work. As for the Whitney Museum of American Art, contemporary reviews are reminders that not much has changed with its much-contested Biennial of new art work, which was panned by The Village Voice, The Nation, and, of course, Hilton Kramer in the New York Times, whose review headline, "This Whitney Biennial Is as Boring as Ever," …