Pae White, Smoke Knows, 2009. Collection of the artist; courtesy greengrassi, London and 1301PE, Los Angeles. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen
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Charles Ray, Untitled, 2009. Collection of the artist; courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
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Tam Tran, Battle Cry, 2008. Collection of the artist
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Ari Marcopoulos, still from Detroit, 2009. Courtesy Ratio 3, San Francisco
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Babette Mangolte, Composite for How To Look…, 1978/2009. Collection of the artist; courtesy Broadway 1602, New York. © 2009 Babette Mangolte (All Rights of Reproduction Reserved)
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Aurel Schmidt, The Fall, 2010. Collection of the artist
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Prior to this year's Whitney Biennial, the Whitney Museum in New York is presenting a spectacular exhibition starting January 16, 2010. The exhibition documents the seismographic sense of the Biennial curators and the controversial history of this art event. With names like Matthew Barney, Philip Guston, Eva Hesse, Edward Hopper, Mike Kelley, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol, Collecting Biennials is a veritable who's who in 20th-century U.S. art. The Whitney Biennial, which is being sponsored by Deutsche Bank again this year, regularly ignites fierce public debates, and not only in New York, as every two years the show ventures to take stock of the current American art scene.
However, with this year's edition, which begins on February 25, curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari intend to provide an even more concentrated view of current U.S. art production. The two curators drastically reduced the number of artists exhibited. While in 2006 100 and in 2008 81 artists were on view, in 2010 the Whitney Biennial is making due with 55 artists, each of whom is represented with just one work or series. Moreover, this year's exhibition is completely limited to the museum building on Madison Avenue.
With Ellen Gallagher, who is represented in the Deutsche Bank Collection with her comprehensive series De Luxe (2004/05), Charles Ray and George Condo, the Whitney Biennial is showing some already established artistic positions. But the special appeal of the most important platform of American contemporary art lies in the young, up-and-coming talents that can be discovered here. For example, Rashaad Newsome, who in his videos engages with Afro-American identity and pop-culture phenomena as hip hop aesthetics. Or Sharon Hayes, who with her performances in public spaces gives fresh impetus to the political art scene. In 2008, she realized a special edition for the print edition of ArtMag on the occasion of the Frieze Art Fair. For Tam Tran, the Whitney Biennial is only the third exhibition; she is hardly known even to insiders. Yet the curators were convinced by the quality of her distinctive photographic self-inquiries. At 23, the Memphis-based artist is the youngest participant in the show.
Whitney Biennial 2010
February 25 - May 30, 2010
Collecting Biennials
January 16 - July 2010
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York
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