The Whitney Museum of American Art just announced the artist selection for the first Whitney Biennial to take place in its new downtown location in the Meatpacking District. The Biennial will open March 17, 2017 and run through June 11, 2017. Curated by the Whitney’s Nancy and Fred Poses Associate Curator Christopher Y. Lew and independent curator Mia Locks, this is the 78th survey of American contemporary art in the museum’s ongoing series of annuals and biennials, initiated by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932.
Lew and Locks named the 63 artists whose works will fill two of the four main gallery floors of the Whitney along with the Neil Bluhm Family Galleries on the fifth floor and numerous other spaces throughout the Museum. The participants range from emerging to well-established individuals and collectives working in painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, film and video, photography, activism, performance, music, and video game design.
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"Marché Salomon" by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, 2015. Digital color video, with sound, 15 min. Courtesy the artist and Galería Agustina Ferrreyra.
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Lew commented in the announcement, “Throughout our research and travel we’ve been moved by the impassioned discussions we had about recent tumult in society, politics, and the economic system. It’s been unavoidable as we met with artists, fellow curators, writers, and other cultural producers across the United States and beyond.” Locks noted: “Against this backdrop, many of the participating artists are asking probing questions about the self and the social, and where these intersect. How do we think and live through these lenses? How and where do they fall short?”
The list of artists follows:
Zarouhie Abdalian
Born 1982 in New Orleans, LA
Lives in New Orleans, LA
Basma Alsharif
Born 1983 in Kuwait City, Kuwait
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Jo Baer
Born 1929 in Seattle, WA
Lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Eric Baudelaire
Born 1973 in Salt Lake City, UT
Lives in Paris, France
Robert Beavers
Born 1949 in Brookline, MA
Lives in Berlin, Germany and Falmouth, MA
Larry Bell
Born 1939 in Chicago, IL
Lives in Taos, NM and Los Angeles, CA
Matt Browning
Born 1984 in Redmond, WA
Lives in Seattle, WA
Susan Cianciolo
Born 1969 in Providence, RI
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Mary Helena Clark
Born 1983 in Santee, SC
Lives in Hamilton, NY
John Divola
Born 1949 in Santa Monica, CA
Lives in Riverside, CA
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer
Born 1979 in New York, NY
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Rafa Esparza
Born 1981 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Kevin Jerome Everson
Born 1965 in Mansfield, OH
Lives in Charlottesville, VA
GCC
(Nanu Al-Hamad, Abdullah Al-Mutairi, Aziz Alqatami, Barrak Alzaid, Khalid al Gharaballi, Amal Khalaf, Fatima Al Qadiri, Monira Al Qadiri)
Founded 2013
Oto Gillen
Born 1984 in New York, NY
Lives in New York, NY
Samara Golden
Born 1973 in Ann Arbor, MI
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Casey Gollan and Victoria Sobel
Born 1991 in Los Angeles, CA; born 1990 in Washington, DC
Lives in New York, NY; lives in New York, NY
Irena Haiduk
Biographical information not given
Lyle Ashton Harris
Born 1965 in Bronx, NY
Lives in New York, NY
Tommy Hartung
Born 1979 in Akron, OH
Lives in Queens, NY
Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Born 1987, location not given
Lives in Oakland, CA
Sky Hopinka
Born 1984 in Bellingham, WA
Lives in Milwaukee, WI
Shara Hughes
Born 1981 in Atlanta, GA
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Aaron Flint Jamison
Born 1979 in Billings, MT
Lives in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA
KAYA
(Kerstin Brätsch and Debo Eilers)
Founded 2010
Jon Kessler
Born 1957 in Yonkers, NY
Lives in New York, NY
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
Born in 1983 in Boston, MA
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Ajay Kurian
Born 1984 in Baltimore, MD
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Deana Lawson
Born 1979 in Rochester, NY
Lives Brooklyn, NY
An-My Lê
Born 1960 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Leigh Ledare
Born 1976 in Seattle, WA
Lives in New York, NY
Dani Leventhal
Born 1972 in Columbus, OH
Lives in Columbus, OH
Tala Madani
Born 1981 in Tehran, Iran
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Park McArthur
Born 1984 in Raleigh, NC
Lives in New York, NY
Harold Mendez
Born 1977 in Chicago, IL
Lives in Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA
Carrie Moyer
Born 1960 in Detroit, MI
Lives in New York, NY
Ulrike Müller
Born 1971 in Brixlegg, Austria
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Julien Nguyen
Born 1990 in Washington, DC
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Born 1976 in Saigon, Vietnam
Lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Raúl de Nieves
Born 1983 in Morelia, Mexico
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Aliza Nisenbaum
Born 1977 in Mexico City, Mexico
Lives in New York, NY
Occupy Museums
(Arthur Polendo, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Kenneth Pietrobono, Noah Fischer, and Tal Beery)
Founded 2011
Pope.L aka William Pope.L
Born 1955 in Newark, NJ
Lives in Chicago, IL
Postcommodity
(Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, Kade L. Twist)
Founded 2007
Puppies Puppies
Born 1989 in Dallas, TX
Lives in Roswell, NM
Asad Raza
Born 1974 in Buffalo, NY
Lives in New York, NY
Jessi Reaves
Born 1986 in Portland, OR
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
John Riepenhoff
Born 1982 in Milwaukee, WI
Lives in Milwaukee, WI
Chemi Rosado-Seijo
Born 1973 in Vega Alta, PR
Lives in San Juan and Naranjito, PR
Cameron Rowland
Born 1988 in Philadelphia, PA
Lives in Queens, NY
Beatriz Santiago Muñoz
Born 1972 in San Juan, PR
Lives in San Juan, PR
Dana Schutz
Born 1976 in Livonia, MI
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Cauleen Smith
Born 1967 in Riverside, CA
Lives in Chicago, IL
Frances Stark
Born 1967 in Newport Beach, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Maya Stovall
Born 1982 in Detroit, MI
Lives in Detroit, MI
Henry Taylor
Born 1958 in Oxnard, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Torey Thornton
Born 1990 in Macon, GA
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Leslie Thornton and James Richards
Born 1951 in Knoxville, TN; born 1983 in Cardiff, United Kingdom
Lives in Brooklyn, NY; lives in Berlin, Germany and London, United Kingdom
Kaari Upson
Born 1972 in San Bernardino, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Kamasi Washington
Born 1981 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Leilah Weinraub
Born 1979 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY
Jordan Wolfson
Born 1980 in New York, NY
Lives in New York, NY
Anicka Yi
Born 1971 in Seoul, South Korea
Lives in Queens, NY
The 2017 Biennial will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue, designed by Olga Casellas Badillo of San Juan-based Tiguere Corp., which includes essays by the curators as well as Biennial advisors Negar Azimi and Gean Moreno, a conversation between the curators and Scott Rothkopf, and a roundtable with filmmakers moderated by Aily Nash. The book will also feature individual entries on each of the sixty-three participants in the exhibition along with reproductions of their work. It will be published by the Whitney Museum of American Art and distributed by Yale University Press.
Rothkopf is leading a team of advisors who are working closely with Lew and Locks to help shape the exhibition. They include: Negar Azimi, writer and senior editor at Bidoun, an award-winning publishing, curatorial, and educational initiative with a focus on the Middle East and its diasporas; Gean Moreno, curator of programs at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and founder of [NAME] Publications; Aily Nash, co-curator of Projections, the New York Film Festival’s artists's film and video section, and Film and Media Curator at Basilica Hudson; and Wendy Yao, a publisher and founder of both the exhibition space 356 South Mission Road and Ooga Booga, a shop with two Los Angeles locations that specializes in independent books, music, art, and clothing. Nash, together with the curators, is co-organizing the Biennial film program, which will screen in the Whitney’s third-floor Susan and John Hess Family Theater.
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