#whibi

[whitneymuseum]

Big news! Although the 2017 Biennial has come and gone, we're thrilled to share that the Museum acquired 32 works from this year's exhibition. Check out ARTnews Magazine for the complete list. 

[whitneymuseum]

We're thrilled to announce that the 2019 Whitney Biennial will be co-curated by our very own Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley! Inaugurated in 1932 by Museum founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the Biennial is the longest-running survey of contemporary American art. Learn more about the curators on our website. 

[Rujeko Hockley (left) and Jane Panetta (right). Photograph by Scott Rudd]

[whitneymuseum]

Don't miss Larry Bell's Pacific Red II, which debuted as part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial this past spring. On view through this Sunday, the work consists of six laminated glass cubes; each measuring six by eight feet and enclosing another six-by-four-foot glass box. The multiple surfaces interplay and respond to their urban surroundings. 

[Visitors explore Larry Bell's Pacific Red II, 2017 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 17–October 1, 2017). Photograph by Ian Allen]

[whitneymuseum]

On the heels of yesterday's 2019 Biennial curator announcement (read more here), we're looking at our current exhibitions and they are chock-full of works from prior iterations of the show! 

The Biennial has always served as the bedrock of the Whitney’s contemporary acquisition program. Expand each image to learn which Biennial the work was shown in or see them for yourself in our galleries.

[whitneymuseum]

Pope.L’s socially engaged practice, spanning performance, theater, installation, video, and painting has interrogated conceptions of class, community, language, and race for over forty years. He is the recipient of the 2017 Bucksbaum Award, a prize granted to one artist in each Whitney Biennial in recognition of work that demonstrates a singular combination of talent and imagination. On October 19, curator Christopher Y. Lew joins Pope.L to discuss his practice in the context of contemporary art in America. Tickets at whitney.org.

[Pope.L aka William Pope.L, Claim, 2017. Acrylic paint, graphite pencil, pushpins, wood, framed document, fortified wine, and bologna with black-and-white photocopy portraits, 15 × 16 3/4 × 16 3/4 ft. (4.6 × 5.1 × 5.1 m). Collection of the artist; courtesy Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photograph Bill Orcutt]

[whitneymuseum]

This morning, we're getting a first look at the 2017 Biennial. Here's Raúl de Nieves's site-specific work on the fifth floor. The artist covered six floor-to-ceiling windows with eighteen "stained-glass" panels he made using paper, wood, glue, tape, beads, and acetate sheets. They create a vivid backdrop for the beaded sculptures, especially in the morning sun!

[whitneymuseum]

Spring has sprung...at least in Asad Raza's installation! In Root sequence. Mother tongue (2017), Raza brings the forest into the Museum. The artist has described the 26 trees growing in the space as characters, individual inhabitants in a living network that includes their human caretakers.

[whitneymuseum]

“The John Riepenhoff Experience is like a miniature gallery that’s mounted in small box on the wall. The only way to access it is to climb up on a ladder and inside that box is a miniature world that I give over control to another artist’s ideas and artwork. The John Riepenhoff Experience in some ways was a way to invite people all the way from children up to art historians to think about the institution as something that’s not small, but malleable. Decisions can be made about it from anyone. If you have any opinion, step up and participate. So in some ways, that smallness creates this feeling of bigness for the viewer.”—John Riepenhoff

The exhibitions on view in the John Riepenhoff Experience will change over the course of the 2017 Biennial and will feature works by Milwaukee-based artist Nicholas Frank, Los Angeles–based artist Martine Syms, and finally an anonymous work from the Whitney's collection.