THE ROOTS OF THE WHITNEY BIENNIAL date to 1932. Originally an annual event, the exhibition was established equally a biennial in 1973. Through the decades, organizers of the group show have sought to reflect the land of contemporary art and tap the pulse of what's going on outside the museum's galleries. As a result, the Whitney Biennial has been the site of bold creative statements, objection to those works and views, and public protests.


Installation view of 2022 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 17-Sept. 22, 2019. Shown, From left, Dicko Chan, "Untitled," 2018; Emerson Ricard, "Untitled," 2018; Simone Leigh, "Stick," 2019; Janiva Ellis, "Uh Oh, Look Who Got Wet," 2019; and Simone Leigh, "#8 Hamlet Series," 2019. | Photo by Ron Amstutz, Courtesy Whitney Museum

Nearly Diverse Whitney Biennial in History

Co-curated by Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley, the 2022 Whitney Biennial presents the work of 75 artists and collectives working in a multifariousness of mediums—painting, sculpture, installation, operation, moving picture and video, photography, and sound.

This year's biennial is the nearly diverse in the history of the exhibition. Virtually 40 percent of the participating artists are blackness, half identify as women, and in terms of age, they range from belatedly 20s to early 80s, with 75 percentage under 40 years old. The creative person listing includes Alexandra Bell, John Edmonds, Brendan Fernandes, Tomashi Jackson, Steffani Jemison, Autumn Knight, Simone Leigh, Eric Due north. Mack, Joe Minter, Wangechi Mutu, Jennifer Packer, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Martine Syms, and Tiona Nekkia McClodden, who won the biennial's 2022 Bucksbaum Award.

More than than 25 years ago, the show was notably diverse relative to previous editions. Thelma Gold was among the curators who helped plan the 1993 Whitney Biennial, which confronted identity politics and issues such as AIDS and poverty—somewhat divisive topics at the time, par for the class today.

Camille Billops (1933-2019) and James Hatch, Julie Dash, Renee Green, Byron Kim, Spike Lee, Glenn Ligon, Alison Saar, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Pat Ward Williams, and Fred Wilson were among the artists, photographers, and filmmakers who participated in the 1993 exhibition. Los Angeles artist Daniel Joseph Martinez distributed admission badges to visitors that read: "I tin't imagine ever wanting to exist white."

Two decades on, in 2014, YAMS, a cocky-described collective of "mostly blackness, and mostly queer" artists withdrew from the biennial over the inclusion of Donelle Woolford, a fictitious black female artist, and what the grouping viewed every bit a racially insensitive project by Joe Scanlan. A white New York-based artist, Scanlan's piece of work explored the life and piece of work of Woolford and he frequently hired black women "collaborators" to portray her.

The 2022 biennial, the museum'due south starting time in its new Renzo Piano-designed building in the Meatpacking District, featured two paintings of black people whose murders penetrated the news wheel in their time.

Brooklyn-based Dana Schutz contributed an abstruse figurative work depicting Emmett Till in his catafalque. Titled "Open Casket," the epitome upset many people and fueled sustained objections to the piece of work. Some black artists were particularly song. Creative person Parker Bright, stood in front of the painting partially obscuring its view to museum goers.

Others spoke up online and creative person Hannah Black issued an open up letter to biennial curators and staff. She took event with a white painter portraying the mutilated black body of Till, who was lynched in Mississippi at age 14. She stated, "The painting must become" with well-nigh 50 additional artists, writers, and curators joining the entreaty by attaching their proper noun to the letter. Posted on Facebook, the petition was taken down subsequently nearly a calendar week.

Creative person Coco Fusco took the contrary position, publishing an essay in Hyperallergic asserting that "Censorship, non the painting, must go." The museum stood past Schutz. The curators, Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks, issued a argument and organized a public forum to air the cultural concerns and opinions of various sides. The event, Perspectives on Race and Representation, was hosted at the museum in collaboration with Claudia Rankine'southward Racial Imaginary Institute. The Emmett Till painting remained on view until the finish of the show.

"Censorship, not the painting, must go." — Coco Fusco


HENRY TAYLOR's paintings on view at 2022 Whitney Biennial, including his depiction of Philando Castile, at correct. | Photo by Matthew Carasella, Courtesy Whitney Museum

Los Angeles artist Henry Taylor presented several paintings at the 2022 biennial, including "The Times Thay Aint a Changing, Fast Plenty!" (2017), which was on display in the gallery adjacent to Schutz's work. Taylor's painting captures Minnesota resident Philando Castile dead in the passenger seat of a car with the torso, arm, and gun of the St. Anthony Constabulary Department officer who shot him visible in the frame. While "Open Casket" by a white artist acquired an uproar and a forum, the painting by Taylor, who is African American, acquired no public protest and barely registered in reviews.

Writing for Cocked, Antwaun Sargent discussed the flap over the Schutz painting and besides considered Taylor'south piece of work. "A smaller group of black artists and museum professionals have expressed displeasure with Taylor, seeing his painting as a means to 'profit' from black expiry," he wrote. "A sculptor and portrait painter, Taylor has spent his career representing mundane scenes of black life, and it was all the more powerful and chilling to see the artist work the canvas to show how black death is a mutual reality for so many black boys and men, like him and me. As with the call to destroy Schutz'southward painting, the arguments effectually Taylor's delineation of Castile ring hollow—at to the lowest degree for this author."

Another black critic, Tobi Haslett, writing for Artforum weighed in on Taylor'south painting. "The most hitting of Taylor's paintings, the sheet that blurts its own urgency, is The Times Thay Aint a Changing, Fast Enough!, 2017. …Taylor'southward piece of work shows us the death-by-policeman of Philando Castile in rough, hasty brushwork that smashes the scene into blocks of color. Expressive élan becomes harshly flat," he wrote. "But the blurred smartphone footage of Castile's slaughter—infamous and ubiquitous concluding summer—is likewise dignified past Taylor's grand scale, which beams the kingliness of history painting at this latest racist crunch. I'yard touched past the resigned humor of the title: It tunes the piece of work's emotional force, equally Taylor declares the gravity of the occasion without languishing in his virtue. It seems right, now, to be rueful."

Afterwards the 2022 biennial concluded, the Whitney Museum announced information technology was acquiring 32 works from the exhibition, including Taylor'south painting of Castile. "Open Casket" by Schutz was not among the additions to the drove.

To Remain Silent is to Be Complicit

Fast forrad to the 2022 Whitney Biennial. Panetta and Hockley were named co-curators of this yr'due south biennial in December 2017. Both are on staff at the Whitney museum. At the time of the announcement, Panetta was an associate curator at the museum. A couple of months agone, she was elevated to manager of the collection.

Hockley, joined the Whitney Museum as an banana curator in January 2017. Early on in her tenure, she mounted "Toyin Ojih Odutola: To Wander Adamant," the creative person's outset museum exhibition in New York. Previously, Hockley was an assistant curator for contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum where she co-organized the traveling exhibition "We Wanted a Revolution: Blackness Radical Women, 1965–85" (2017-eighteen).


From left, 2022 Whitney Biennial curators Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta. | Photo by Scott Rudd, Courtesy Whitney Museum

The biennial was set to open in May 2019. Then, six months out, before the artist list had even been released, the museum was the target of public ire and internal dissension over a prominent board fellow member.

In late November 2018, Warren B. Kanders, vice-chairman of the Whitney'due south lath of trustees, come under fire when the logo for a visitor he owns, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based Safariland Group, was seen in news images on tear gas canisters and smoke grenades used by the U.Due south. government against aviary seekers at the U.South-Mexico boarder. Hyperallergic reported the connectedness, which prompted the museum'south staff to issue a public alphabetic character "to convey their outrage." Their demands included a request that the board consider request for Kanders's resignation. "To remain silent is to exist complicit," the letter said. Virtually 100 Whitney employees endorsed the letter of the alphabet, including Hockley. Panetta did not sign it.

The letter from Whitney Museum staff included a asking that the board consider request for Kanders'southward resignation. "To remain silent is to be complicit," the letter of the alphabet said.

In response, Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum, issued a statement that didn't straight address the controversial issue. Weinberg said, in office: "We respect the right to dissent every bit long as nosotros can safeguard the fine art in our care and the people in our midst. …the contemporary museum, it is 'a condom space for dangerous ideas.' This is the commonwealth of fine art." Kanders made a statement, likewise. "I am not the trouble," he said. Decolonize This Place entered the fray, protesting at the museum, calling for Kanders to step down, and organizing a town hall about the matter with Chinatown Fine art Brigade and Westward.A.G.E.

In February, when the artists participating in the 2022 biennial were announced, the New York Times reported Chicago-based artist Michael Rakowitz, had withdrawn from the exhibition in advance, in Dec, over the continued association of Kanders with the Whitney.

Afterward that month, Decolonize This Place let information technology be known the organization was mounting regular protests in the lead up the exhibition opening. Which it did. Thirty groups joined in the "Nine Weeks of Fine art and Action" launched March 22 with 1 goal: the removal of Kanders from the Whitney board.

In an open letter published April 5 on the Verso Books weblog titled "Kanders Must Get," more than 120 theorists, critics, and scholars called for the vice chairman's ouster. The original signatories included Omar Berrada, Claire Bishop, Ben Davis, Nicole Fleetwood, Robin D.G. Kelley, Lucy Lippard, Mark Crispin Miller, Fred Moten, Tavia Nyong'o, and Mable O. Wilson.

On April 29, the Verso letter was updated with the names of artists who endorsed the letter. More than than 300 have been added to the letter, among them: Chloë Bass, Hanna Black, Mel Chin, Chinatown Arts Brigade, Sam Durant, Guerilla Girls, Nan Goldin, Isaac Julien, Barbara Kruger, Zoe Leonard, Park McArthur, Laura Poitras, Michael Rakowitz, Cameron Rowland, Dread Scott, Xaviera Simmons, and Hito Steyerl.

Nearly 75 percent of the artists participating in this year'southward biennial as well signed the alphabetic character, including Eddie Approach, Nicole Eisenman, Janiva Ellis, Kota Ezawa, Brendan Fernandes, Forensic Compages, Jeffrey Gibson, Todd Gray, Steffani Jemison, Christine Sun Kim, Darius Clark Monroe, Wangechi Mutu, Daniel Lind Ramos, Carissa Rodriguez, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Martine Syms.


Installation view of KOTA EZAWA, "National Anthem," 2018, 2022 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Fine art, New York, May 17-Sept. 22, 2019. Shown in groundwork, At left, Elle Pérez, "Blossom," 2019; Elle Pérez, "Sable," 2019; Elle Pérez, "Jane," 2019. | Photo by Ron Amstutz, Courtesy Whitney Museum

Non Radical Enough

When the 2022 Whitney Biennial opened May 17, Kanders remained on the lath, and Decolonize continued to protest his presence with actions inside and exterior the museum. Many artworks featured in the evidence reflect gimmicky political and cultural issues. Hurricane Maria and the rich history of Puerto Rico inspired mixed-media sculptures past Daniel Lind-Ramos. Alexandra Bong, who points out bias in the presentation of news, analyzed 1989 coverage of the Central Park Five in the New York Daily News. Kota Ezawa transformed his watercolor paintings of NFL players taking a human knee during national anthem into an animated video.

London-based Forensic Compages, a inquiry grouping participating in the exhibition, essentially focused its work on Kanders, presenting "Triple-Chaser," a short film about an artificial intelligence algorithm it developed to track the use of a tear gas canister manufactured by Defense Engineering science, a subsidiary of Safariland. The documentary was fabricated with Laura Poitras'due south Praxis Films. According to the group's findings, evidence of the Triple-Chaser's utilize was detected in the United states, Mexico, South America, Quebec, Greece, North Africa, and the Eye E, including Egypt, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine.

Subsequently reviews written by white critics described the biennial as not radical plenty, artists Xaviera Simmons and Simone Leigh pushed back.

Ane of the artists participating in the 2022 Whitney Biennial, Simone Leigh noted "concerns about radicality" have been expressed regarding the grouping exhibition. On May 16, she posted on Instagram a litany of topics and cultural insights, stating that those non informed nigh the subjects are in no position to weigh in on her work.

Her citations include writers Saidiya Hartman or Hortense Spillers, Negritude and Léopold Sédar Senghor, FESTAC 77, Katherine Dunham, and Pauline Lumumba walking through the streets of Kinshasha bare breasted. If yous take no thought about these things, Leigh says, "Then you lack the knowledge to recognize the radical gestures in my work. And that is why, instead of mentioning these things, I have politely said black women are my primary audience."

Writing in The Fine art Newspaper on July ii, New York-based Simmons responded to descriptions from critics calling many of the works in the biennial "simple, preachy or heavy-handed."

In an essay titled "Whiteness must undo itself to make mode for the truly radical turn in gimmicky culture," she contends: "When viewing an exhibition as sexually and ethnically various equally this biennial, the more than essential question is: whose works and whose bodies should deport the weight of the radical impulse?" she writes. "…And if we don't deliver it for your visual pleasure (though I believe some works in the biennial actually exercise), practice not sulk or lament that you lot miss the rage of the radical. That is likewise yours to ain."

Simmons, whose piece of work is not included in the exhibition, does not reference any item critics or reviews. She is likely referencing assessments published by The Art Newspaper, ARTnews, and artnet News.

"When viewing an exhibition equally sexually and ethnically diverse as this biennial, the more than essential question is: whose works and whose bodies should behave the weight of the radical impulse?" — Xaviera Simmons


STEFFANI JEMISON, "Sensus Plenior," 2022 (high-definition video, black-and-white, sound; 34:36 minutes), | Image courtesy the creative person

Preserving the Public Trust

Meanwhile, Kanders wasn't the only museum patron coming under fire. In the UK and the U.s., the Sackler family (founders of Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin) and BP, the oil and gas visitor, both major supporters of the arts whose businesses many consider harmful to the environment and humanity, faced reprisals from institutions where programs, wings, and entire buildings are named in their honor. Museums have returned some fiscal gifts and rejected hereafter funding support. The Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Tate Uk, the National Portrait Gallery, and Serpentine Gallery in London, are among those refusing donations from the Sacklers.

The Washington Mail service reported that Lonnie Agglomeration, secretarial assistant of the Smithsonian Institution, said the Arthur Grand. Sackler proper name would remain on the Smithsonian'due south Asian art museum in perpetuity as required by an understanding signed well-nigh 40 years ago.

Responding to a asking from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) that the Sackler proper name be removed, Bunch said the Smithsonian still recognized the gravity of the opioid crunch and the family's association with information technology.

"The Sackler event has been under examination at the institution for some fourth dimension," he wrote in a letter to Merkley. "Delight know that we appreciate that, in order to maintain and preserve the public trust, we must meet the highest ethical standards in all of our activities."

For years, climate activists from groups such every bit Greenpeace and BP or Not BP? and have demonstrated confronting BP's support of the British Museum. In Feb, about 350 people occupied the museum protesting its human relationship with BP. Nigh 80 British artists, including Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Christian Marclay, Gillian Wearing, and Rachel Whiteread, issued an open up letter in July calling on London's National Portrait Gallery sever ties with BP. The effort was led by artist Gary Hume, a gauge for the museum'southward annual BP Portrait Award. In 2017, the Tate museum ended a sponsorship agreement with BP. The British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery continue to take BP support.

Museum connections with other oil giants, weapons manufacturers, and companies overseeing immigrant detention centers have also been rebuffed past artists.


WANGECHI MUTU, "Sentinel I," 2022 (paper pulp, wood glue, concrete, wood, glass chaplet, stone, rose quartz, gourd, and jewelry, 87 ¾ x 17 ¾ x 22 inches / 221 x 43.2 ten 55.nine cm). | Image courtesy the artist

Teargas Biennial

Two months after the biennial opened, Kanders remained on the board prompting another public outcry. On July 17, Hannah Black, Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett published an essay in Artforum titled "The Teargas Biennial." All three of the authors are black.

(Hannah Black posted the Facebook petition calling for the removal of Dana Schutz's Emmett Till painting at the 2022 Whitney Biennial. Tobi Haslett discussed Henry Taylor's painting "The Times Thay Aint a Changing, Fast Enough!" in his Artforum review of the biennial.)

The essay in Artforum details the effects of tear gas and notes that Safariland products accept been used at Continuing Rock in Due north Dakota; Ferguson, Mo.; and in Puerto Rico to "disperse and defeat" anti-austerity protestors on May Day 2018.

Information technology also emphasizes that participating artists should take expressed opposition to Kanders'southward amalgamation with the Whitney Museum by refusing to participate in the biennial. "There should have been a cold-shoulder," the authors write. Later on they add: "Even now, it remains possible that artists could human activity according to their conscience, political sensibility, or instinctive revulsion and remove their work earlier the exhibition closes in tardily September. It would exist in every sense of the word a shame if this opportunity were to be entirely missed."

"There should have been a boycott. …Even now, it remains possible that artists could act co-ordinate to their censor, political sensibility, or instinctive revulsion and remove their piece of work before the exhibition closes in late September."
— Hannah Black, Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett

The authors so accost the office race and privilege may play in decisions to stay in the biennial or go. "What has fabricated refusal seem inappropriate or incommunicable?" Blackness, Finlayson, and Haslett ask.

"There has been resentment among artists, expressed privately and on social media, that the original (opaque and bungled) call to cold-shoulder or strike came from the art activist organizations Decolonize This Place and W.A.G.Eastward.—the latter derided by some as the pet project of just one white woman."

They continue: "Only criticisms of these groups, true or not, are non adequate substitutes for a genuine cess of the political circumstance or what it asks of united states. We've heard, also, that the effort to politicize the Biennial amounts first, to racism, considering information technology places an unfair burden on artists of color, who ought to be historic in this majority-minority Biennial, and 2nd, an expression of class privilege, because'"artists must eat.'"

Raising an example of the power and influence the actions of even one artist can have, Black, Finlayson, and Haslett point out that information technology was photographer Nan Goldin, who spurred what has evolved into an international art world rebuke of the Sackler family, the target of major lawsuits in the wake of the opioid crisis. (Goldin threatened to cancel her forthcoming retrospective at Britain's National Portrait Gallery if the museum accustomed money from the Sacklers. She prevailed.)

As evidence that it practice what it preaches, the trio notes the post-obit: "2 of the authors of this statement have recently rejected offers from the Whitney in explicit protest against Kanders." (It unclear if the offers cited chronicle to participation in the biennial or some other projects or opportunities with the museum.)


Installation view of NICOLE EISENMAN, "Procession," 2019, 2022 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 17-Sept. 22, 2019. | Photo by Ron Amstutz, Courtesy Whitney Museum

"Information technology Has Been a Pleasure Working With You"

Two days later, 8 artists withdrew from the exhibition. Frustrated with Kanders's connected presence on the board, they asked that their work exist removed from the show. Initially, four artists (Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman and Nicholas Galanin) expressed their intentions in a July 19 alphabetic character addressed to "Ru and Jane," the co-curators.

The alphabetic character said in role, "This request is intended as condemnation of Warren Kanders' continued presence as Vice Chair of the Lath. We would appreciate if y'all presented this letter to the Lath to let them know the seriousness of the state of affairs. …[T]he Museum's continued failure to respond in any meaningful way to growing pressure from artists and activists has made our participation untenable. The Museum's inertia has turned the screw, and we reject farther complicity with Kanders and his technologies of violence." They added: "We have enormous respect for you as curators and it has been a pleasure working with you."

"[T]he Museum's continued failure to reply in any meaningful fashion to growing pressure from artists and activists has fabricated our participation untenable. The Museum'southward inertia has turned the screw, and we turn down farther complicity with Kanders and his technologies of violence."
— Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman, and Nicholas Galanin

The next day four additional artists (Eddie Approach, Agustina Woodgate, Christine Lord's day Kim, and Forensic Architecture), let it be known they, too, were withdrawing.

Each of the eight artists who withdrew endorsed the Verso letter. None of the artists who pulled out of the exhibition were blackness.

With eight artists out, remaining artists were asked how they viewed the situation. Chicago-based artist and choreographer Brendan Fernandes, who signed the Verso letter of the alphabet, told ARTnews he intended to stay in the biennial. He is presenting a sculptural installation activated with regularly scheduled live performances by 10 ballet dancers.

"Working with collaborators, performers, and institutions, I have a responsibility to approach the questions raised by these artists in dialogue with the others involved in my piece of work," Fernandes said in a statement to ARTnews. "My hope is that the actions taken will issue in deeper chat and more direct action on the part of art institutions to address their complicated relationship with industries of oppression."


BRENDAN FERNANDES (1979-), "The Master and Form," June 7, 2019. Performers shown, From left, Mauricio Vera, Amy Saunder, Tiffany Mangulabnan, and Tyler Zydel. | Photograph by Paula Court, Courtesy Whitney Museum

The Irony of All This

Six days after the artists issued their withdrawal letter of the alphabet and more than six months of sustained objections and protests, Kanders stepped down from the lath of the Whitney Museum.

The New York Times first reported his July 25 resignation. "The targeted campaign of attacks against me and my company that has been waged these past several months has threatened to undermine the of import work of the Whitney," Kanders said in his resignation letter, according to the Times. "I joined this board to help the museum prosper. I practise not wish to play a role, however inadvertent, in its demise."

With Kanders out, the viii artists who had withdrawn from the biennial said their works, which had yet to be removed, could remain on view.

"Every museum director is looking at us right now and saying, 'Gee, if the Whitney is being targeted, what'due south going to happen to u.s.?'"
— Adam Weinberg, Director of Whitney Museum

Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum, expressed thwarting at the outcome. "Here's a man who has given a tremendous amount of his time and money to young, often edgy and radical artists—somebody who is very progressive—that's i of the ironies of all this," he told the Times.

"The Whitney Museum is 1 of the most progressive, the most diverse, the well-nigh engaged, open programs of any major institution in the country," Weinberg added. "Every museum director is looking at usa correct now and proverb, 'Gee, if the Whitney is being targeted, what'southward going to happen to usa?'"

Kenyan American artist Wangechi Mutu keeps studios in Brooklyn and Nairobi. She just debuted "The NewOnes, will free Us," the start-ever facade commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She is likewise participating in the biennial. Mutu endorsed the Verso letter of the alphabet and has three sculptures in the show, including a pair of "Sentry" figures, "larger-than-life earthy, android female forms," composed of a variety of materials such as paper pulp, forest, concrete, rose quartz, stone, and os. According to the exhibition description, "The Sentinels stand up equally harbingers of the acute imperative to ameliorate our relationship with each other and our planet or to take that environmental destruction will inevitably decide our fate for united states."

On Sept. ii, Mutu posted several images from the biennial and the following bulletin on Instagram: #WhitneyBiennale2019 Looking at Art lone is so important… and wonderful. simply looking at Art with family and friends can exist actually lovely! The 2 curators Of this years exhibition rocked it ! No internal or outside upheavals can take away from the fact that it was a bright, strong, intelligent, thoughtful, relevant, elegant exhibition with and so then many Incredible Artists! CT

2019 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Fine art, New York, Northward.Y., May 17-Sept. 22, 2019. (Some Biennial works volition remain on view in the Stairwell: Marcus Fischer, through Sept. 23; Entrance hall: Jeffrey Gibson, through Sept. 30; and on Floor Six: Diverse artists, through Oct. 27


Co-curators Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley introduce the 2022 Whitney Biennial. | Video by Whitney Museum

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