The artist list was announced today for the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Opening on May 17, 2019 and continues on view through September 22, 2019. Seventy-five artists were selected for this year's edition, which is organized by two Whitney curators: Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley. This is the 79th exhibition since its launch in 1932 by museum founder Gertrude Vanderbilt.
Artist selected include emerging to well-established artists and collectives who work in mediums that include painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, film and video; photography, performance and sound. The art will be installed on the fifth and sixth floors of the museum as well as in spaces located both outside and inside the museum. In making their selections, the curators visited over 300 studios located across the United States.
In addition, three guest curators were invited to choose 11 artists for the film program. The trio are are Maori Karmael Holmes (BlackStar Film Festival founder); Sky Hopinka (artist and filmmaker whose work was shown in the 2017 Biennial); and Matt Wolf (filmmaker and documentarian).
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"My Soul Remainer" by Laura Ortman, 2017. High-definition video, color, sound; 5:44 min. Image courtesy the artist and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
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Over half the artists selected currently live in New York City or Brooklyn (40) with small concentrations from LA (7) and Puerto Rico (5) with two artists hailing from Miami, Philadelphia and New Jersey at large. Otherwise, artists are dispersed across the United States including those based in Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Portland, OR plus Arkansas, New Jersey, Massachusetts and other locations.
A few artists or collectives don't have a odvious connection to America as they were not born or work in the United States. The international contingency include artists or groups from Canada, London and Mexico.
The curators had this to say in the announcement:
Panetta remarked: “Ru and I especially focused on emerging artists and first time Biennial participants: approximately seventy-five percent of the artists in the show are under forty and only five have previously appeared in a Whitney Biennial. In part, this emphasis resulted from what we saw during our research across the U.S., as we were struck by the profound difficulties of our current moment and the ways in which so many artists we encountered are struggling and facing fewer opportunities to present their work publicly.”
Hockley noted, “Although intentionally broad in scope, the exhibition explores key themes, including the mining of history in order to reimagine the present or future, a profound and sustained consideration of questions of equity along financial, racial, and sexual lines, a concern with climate change, and explorations of the vulnerability of the body. Artists in the exhibition are engaged with notions of what community means and can provide while using art to confront and cope with our current world.”
Adam D. Weinberg, the Museum’s Alice Pratt Brown Director, commented: “Taking the pulse of American creativity and culture, the Whitney Biennial has been finding the future of contemporary art for nearly a century. The Biennial is an essential strand of the Museum’s DNA, a chance to reaffirm one of the Whitney’s deepest commitments: to support the work of living artists and to engage in a cultural dialogue about what contemporary art is and why it matters.”
Following is the full list:
Eddie Arroyo
Born 1976 in Miami, FL / Lives in Miami
Korakrit Arunanondchai
Born 1986 in Bangkok, Thailand / Lives in New York, NY and Bangkok, Thailand
Olga Balema
Born 1984 in Lviv, Ukraine / Lives in New York, NY
Morgan Bassichis
Born 1983 in Newton, MA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Blitz Bazawule
Born 1982 in Accra, Ghana / Lives in New York, NY
Alexandra Bell
Born 1983 in Chicago, IL / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Brian Belott
Born 1973 in East Orange, NJ / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Meriem Bennani
Born 1988 in Rabat, Morocco / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Robert Bittenbender
Born 1987 in Washington, DC / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Lucas Blalock
Born 1978 in Asheville, NC / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Garrett Bradley
Born 1986 in New York, NY / Lives in New Orleans, LA
Milano Chow
Born 1987 in Los Angeles, CA / Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Colectivo Los Ingrávidos
Founded 2011 in Tehuacán, Mexico
Thirza Cuthand
Born 1978 in Regina, Saskatchewan / Lives in Toronto, Ontario
John Edmonds
Born 1989 in Washington, DC / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Nicole Eisenman
Born 1965 in Verdun, France / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Janiva Ellis
Born 1987 in Oakland, CA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles, CA
Kota Ezawa
Born 1969 in Cologne, West Germany / Lives in Oakland, CA
Brendan Fernandes
Born 1979 in Nairobi, Kenya / Lives in Chicago, IL
FIERCE and Paper Tiger Televiesion
FIERCE founded in 2000 in New York, NY / Paper Tiger Founded 1981 in New York, NY
Marcus Fischer
Born 1977 in Torrance, CA / Lives in Portland, OR
Forensic Architecture
Founded 2010 in London, United Kingdom
Ellie Ga
Born 1976 in New York, NY / Lives in Stockholm, Sweden
Nicolas Galanin
Born 1979 in Stika, AK / Lives in Sitka, AK
Sofia Gallisá Muriente
Born 1986 in San Juan, PR / Lives in San Juan, PR
Jeffrey Gibson
Born 1972 in Colorado Springs, CO / Lives in Germantown, NY
Todd Gray
Born 1954 in Los Angeles, CA / Lives in Los Angeles, CA and Akwidaa, Ghana
Sam Green
Born 1966 in Detroit, MI / Lives in New York, NY
Barbara Hammer
Born 1939 in Los Angeles, CA / Lives in New York, NY
Ilana Harris-Babou
Born 1991 in Brooklyn, NY / Lives in Williamstown, MA and Brooklyn, NY
Matthew Angelo Harrison
Born 1989 in Detroit, MI / Lives in Detroit, MI
Curran Hatleberg
Born 1982 in Washington, DC / Lives in Baltimore, MD
Madeline Hollander
Born 1986 in Los Angeles, CA / Lives in New York, NY
Iman Issa
Born in Cairo, Egypt / Lives in Berlin, Germany and New York, NY
Tomashi Jackson
Born 1980 in Houston, TX / Lives in New York, NY and Cambridge, MA
Steffani Jemison
Born 1981 in Berkeley, CA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil and Jackson Polys
Adam Khalil: Born 1988 in Nyack, NY / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Zack Khalil: Born 1991 in Newton, MA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Jackson Polys: Born 1976 in Ketchikan, AK / Lives in New York, NY
Christine Sun Kim
Born 1980 in Orange County, CA / Lives in Berlin, Germany
Josh Kline
Born 1979 in Philadelphia, PA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Autumn Knight
Born 1980 in Houston, TX / Lives in New York, NY
Carolyn Lazard
Born 1987 in Upland, CA / Lives in Philadelphia, PA
Maia Ruth Lee
Born 1983 in Busan, South Korea / Lives in New York, NY
Simone Leigh
Born 1967 in Chicago, IL / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Daniel Lind-Ramos
Born 1953 in Loiza, PR / Lives in Loiza, PR
James Luna
Born 1950 in Orange, CA / Died 2018
Eric N. Mack
Born 1987 in Columbia, MD / Lives in New York, NY
Calvin Marcus
Born 1988 in San Francisco, CA / Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Born 1981 in Blytheville, AR / Lives in Philadelphia, PA
Troy Michie
Born 1985 in El Paso, TX / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Joe Minter
Born 1943 in Birmingham, Al / Lives in Birmingham, AL
Keegan Monaghan
Born 1986 in Evanston, IL / Lives in Montreal, Quebec
Caroline Monnet
Born 1985 in Ottawa, Ontario / Lives in Montreal, Quebec
Darius Clark Monroe
Born 1980 in Houston, TX / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Ragen Moss
Born 1978 in New York, NY / Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Sahra Motalebi
Born 1979 in Birmingham, AL / Lives in New York, NY and Delaware County, NY
Marlon Mullen
Born 1963 in Richmond, CA / Lives in Rodeo, CA
Jeannette Mundt
Born 1982 in Princeton, NJ / Lives in Somerset, NJ
Wangechi Mutu
Born 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya / Lives in Brooklyn, NY and Nairobi, Kenya
Las Nietas de Nono (Lydela Nono and Michel Nono)
Established 2011
Born 1979 and 1982 respectively in San Juan, PR / Both live in Carolina, PR
Jenn Nkiru
Born 1987 in London, UK / Lives in London, UK
Laura Ortman
Born 1973 in Whiteriver, AZ / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Jennifer Packer
Born 1984 in Philadelphia, PA / Lives in New York, NY
Nibia pastrana Santiago
Born 1987 in Caguas, PR / Lives in San Juan, PR
Elle Perez
Born 1989 in the Bronx, NY / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Pat Phillips
Born 1987 in Lakenheath, UK / Lives in Pineville, LA
Gala Porras-Kim
Born 1984 in Bogota, Columbia / Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Walter Price
Born 1989 in Macon, GA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Carissa Rodriguez
Born 1970 in New York, NY / Lives in New York, NY
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Born 1982 in San Bernardino, CA / Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Heji Shin
Born 1983 in Seoul, South Korea / Lives in New York, NY
Diane Simpson
Born 1935 in Joliet, IL / Lives in Wilmette, IL
Martine Syms
Born 1988 in Los Angeles, CA / Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Kyle Thurman
Born 1986 in West Chester, PA / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Mariana Valencia
Born 1984 in Chicago, IL / Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Agustina Woodgate
Born 1981 in Buenos Aires, Argentina / Lives in Miami, FL and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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BASIC FACTS: The Whitney Biennial will be held May 17 to September 22, 2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, NY 10014. www.whitney.org.
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