This year’s 78th Whitney Biennial, curated by Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks is the first to take place in the museum’s new Meatpacking District location. Current controversy over painter Dana Schutz’s subject matter aside, the show has been a critical success (which can’t be said of every Whitney Biennial, with its infamously uneven track record). This exhibition demonstrates the current re-emergence of figurative painting in contemporary art and delivers multiple on-point, meaningful perspectives on the state of society—police brutality, climate change, gun violence, immigration, war and hate crime are among the topics included in the exhibition. Whitney director Adam Weinberg summed up the show perfectly in his introduction at the Biennial’s opening with this phrase, delivered firmly and quietly: “Irony, be gone.”
You can see a few highlights from the 2017 Whitney Biennial, above and below.
Swiss Bramble (2016) by Carrie Moyer. Acrylic and glitter on canvas, 84 x 78 inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York.
Dusk (Bands and End-Points) (2012) by Jo Baer. Oil on canvas, 86 ⅝ x 118 ⅛ inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin. Photograph by Gert Jan van Rooij.
Untitled (2000) by Susan Cianciolo. Watercolor on paper, 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, New York.
La Talaverita, Sunday Morning NY Times (2106) by Aliza Nisenbaum. Oil on linen, 68 × 88 inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of T293 Gallery, Rome and Mary Mary, Glasgow.
In The Clear (2016) by Shara Hughes. Oil, acrylic and dye on canvas, 68 x 60 inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Rachel Uffner, New York.
Lyle, London, 1992 (2012) by Lyle Ashton Harris. Chromogenic print, 20 ½ x 15 inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of the artist.
Somos Monstros (2016) by Raúl de Nieves. Cloth patches, fabric, and mannequin, 79 x 26 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Company Gallery, New York.
Idol of the Hares (2014) by Jessi Reaves. Oak, polyurethane foam, silk, cotton, aluminum, and ink, 38 × 28 x 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, New York.
