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By Jason Farago, Travis Diehl and Martha Schwendener
The Whitney Biennial, New York’s greatest vital exhibition of new American (or American) art, thrives on arguments: in print, in commentaries, in bars, and in the galleries themselves. Its 81st edition opens to museum members and the public in March. Thursday’s 20, and features a “dissonant chorus,” in the words of engaging artist and choreographer Ligia Lewis, of young skills and seasoned practitioners. We sent our own dissonant chorus to the Whitney Museum of American Art: 3 reviews, each written separately, about the ups and downs of the exhibition that everyone will have their opinion on.
Jason Farago
What can the Whitney Biennial be, now, so overdue after the end of modernism?Is this a wonderful intellectual battle or just internal propaganda?A market window to buy while young (or when old but undervalued), the cultural equivalent of the NBA draft?A ritual of atavistic society, a dance of the M. F. A. ‘s debt?
Choose your own metaphor, but it can’t be a summary of the state of the art in the United States in 2024. When culture as a whole is adrift and an avant-garde rarely returns, the most productive thing it can offer, or at least at least this year’s curators, Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli, seem to say: it’s a cross-section with a point of view. Its biennial is small, with only 44 artists and collectives spread across 4 floors of the museum and its outdoor spaces; two dozen more will screen films at the Whitney Theatre and, for the first time, on its website. In fact, the display is small in other ways: decidedly low-risk, visually polished, and not letting the symbol get in the way of the right position.
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