Exhibition Review & Archive byArtist: Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Exhibition on View: March 20 ~ August 11, 2024

Please know this is a very personal perspective on the Whitney Biennial, based on my personal experience and time I spent to think about this biennial compare to other art exhibitions I visited, and opinions I hear from my fellow artists, curators and gallery owners. 

Have you ever wondered why the recent Whitney Biennials have not been impressive nor interesting? The exhibition press release was clearly stating what we will see in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. basically this time they mentioned we will have been seeing what's on the media and SNS giving spotlights to them in forms of art in a museum. But I still went there because I'm in New York City, plus I was a little curious what they would show us within the matters we have already been seeing everywhere. It is a place for social problems, new technologies, and sarcasm.

Most importantly by attending them and becoming an audience, we supported them by showing us what we call "borning" again this year and for the next biennial. We know before visiting that it will be boring, and we still go there every time, only not to miss a major art event, and that way, we support the next Whitney Biennial to be something we describe as boring again.

Curators bucket list based on the expectations and pressures in the society. They have a bucket list of what theme and matters they want to include and cover in the next biennial. Readling the press release, I think they see value in having them be in a museum.

I believe there are sponsors' influences present, more or less, to the biennial. In the past several times the Whitney Biennial has been having a fashion house as a sponsor. In 2014 BCBGMAXAZRIA and Deutsche Bank, and Sotheby's. In 2017, 2019, 2022 they had Tiffany&Co. and Sotheby's. In 2024 Hyundai, Bvlgari, and Sotheby's.

Artist's challenge and decisions: Even though we see many artwork made in the year 2024 for 2024 Biennial, all museum exhibitions are planned at least 2-3 year ahead. So when a biennial is happening next one is already in progress including selecting artists. Artists are making work that is intended to show at the biennial.

I can't say how much influence the sponsor has over selecting topics and artists for the biennial directly and indirectly, but personally I see that having a mainstream luxury fashion house (including the Jewelry) that isn't punk like Vivienne Westwood) as a base fund implying the idea of following fashion, or popular trends.

Whitney Biennial has been a great recap of what's on the mass media and SNS but in the forms of art. Although there might be no surprise there because they are curating it inside the box which we are in and already know the content to the details. And if you want to see something new there are the Venice biennale and Yokohama Triennale and so on that you can try.

This blog includes images of wall texts and artworks of Whitney Biennial, Whitey Museum's permanent collection, and the one room exhibition "Wanda Gag's World".

Thank you always for reading my blog and I look forward to share you more in 2025.

Demian DinéYazhi ́, we must stop imaging apocalypse / genocide + we must imagine liberation, 2024

Rose B. Simpson, Daughters: Reverence, 2024

Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, xhairymutantx Embedding Study 2, 2024

Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, xhairymutantx Embedding Study 1, 2024

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Paloma Blanca Deja Volar / White Dove Let Us Fly, 2024

Kiyan Williams

Nikita Gale, TEMPO RUBATO (STOLEN TIME), 2023–24

Nikita Gale, TEMPO RUBATO (STOLEN TIME), 2023–24

Official Texts From Whitney Museum:

The eighty-first edition of the Whitney Biennial—the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States—features seventy-one artists and collectives grappling with many of today’s most pressing issues. This Biennial is like being inside a “dissonant chorus," as participating artist Ligia Lewis described it, a provocative yet intimate experience of distinct and disparate voices that collectively probe the cracks and fissures of the unfolding moment.

The exhibition’s subtitle, Even Better Than the Real Thing, acknowledges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is complicating our understanding of what is real, and rhetoric around gender and authenticity is being used politically and legally to perpetuate transphobia and restrict bodily autonomy. These developments are part of a long history of deeming people of marginalized race, gender, and ability as subhuman—less than real. In making this exhibition, we committed to amplifying the voices of artists who are confronting these legacies, and to providing a space where difficult ideas can be engaged and considered.

This Biennial is a gathering of artists who explore the permeability of the relationships between mind and body, the fluidity of identity, and the growing precariousness of the natural and constructed worlds around us. Whether through subversive humor, expressive abstraction, or non-Western forms of cosmological thinking, to name but a few of their methods, these artists demonstrate that there are pathways to be found, strategies of coping and healing to be discovered, and ways to come together even in a fractured time.

The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator and Meg Onli, Curator at Large, with Min Sun Jeon and Beatriz Cifuentes. The performance program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curator Taja Cheek. The film program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker.