Whitney Biennial 2026
99 Gansevoort, NY 10014
Open March 8-August 23, 2026
“Leave it to the Whitney to give us piles of dirt and contemporary art.”
A week after the opening of the 82nd Whitney Biennial, I enter the museum lobby abuzz with tourists and an ambient sound installation. I proceed to the basement where the installation continues via a large steel pipe ascending the central stairwell and emerging from a damp mound of sand nearly overflowing into the coat check line. The work we find is “System’s Void” (2026) by a young Vietnamese artist, Sung Tieu (b.1987), with the sounds recorded from air quality warning during gas raids. At the VIP opening the week prior, I crowded in to eagerly check my umbrella with my initial thought of the first installation being, “Just leave it to the Whitney to give us piles of dirt as contemporary art.” SMH. On this second view, we begin to appreciate their take on the perennial debate: what is art and what does it take to be American art as the show’s central questions.
Proceed up the stairwell to the 5th floor into the first side room and we are greeted again by a sound bath this time accompanied by bulbous resin casts and large scale panels seemingly corroded by multicolored amoeba-like stains by an Egyptian artist, Nour Mobarak (b.1985). We learn the sounds overhead are recordings from inside the artist’s vagina during pregnancy and the panels are “casts” of her womb. “Go ‘head, girl!”, an unsuspecting art goer exclaims under her breath as she reads the exhibit placard. What other ridiculousness with these 1980s and 90s babies create? So much for counting on the adults in the room.
Turn around to feast upon the naked sleeping toddlers by Andrea Fraser (b. 1965) that appear to be cement but are in fact waxen and encased in glass lest they decompose. A comment of the fleeting nature of childhood? This from the daughter of Carmen de Monteflores, one of the only other exhibitors over age 50 and perhaps my favorite pieces in the show: heralding seventies sublime with vibrant pop art colors, woodcuts of lounging intertwined nudes adorn the same gallery and harken contemporary art’s heyday.
Re-enter the nonsense as you descend into dim and scented deep sea green Grasshopper room adorned with praying mantis tapestries and accompanied by suspended horns bathing the viewer/listener in a plague-like sound of locusts interspersed with the startling sound of breaking glass. One patron entered the darkened room and literally screamed. I, on the other hand, am startled by the fact that the work is created by Columbian artist Oswaldo Marcia (b.1960), though in 2026. So much for counting on the adults in this room. Turn around to feast upon the naked sleeping toddlers by Andrea Fraser (b. 1965) that appear to be cement but are in fact waxen and encased in glass lest they decompose. A comment of the fleeting nature of childhood? This from the daughter of Carmen de Monteflores, one of the few exhibitors over age 50 and perhaps my favorite pieces in the show: heralding seventies sublime with vibrant pop art colors, woodcuts of lounging intertwined nudes adorn the same gallery and harken contemporary art’s heyday.
I meander through various caverns and immerse myself in of-the moment contemporary sound and video installations with strobe-light warnings by younger artists from around the world over two floors. From “Talk Show” by Jordan Strafer (b. 1990) of Athens and Miami who addresses sexual harassment to the Honolulu pair of kekahi wahi and Bradley Capello’s satirical resistance training video on the site of Captain Cook’s landing, the trend for youthful earnest mixed with the ridiculous continues.
I finally stumble upon the end of the free guided tour in front of “January, September 2024 Berlin” (2025), which consists of four staid dark gray stained pieces of parchment paper enclosed in plexiglass panels by Chilean artist, Johanna Unzieta (b. 1974). As the guide concludes, “This is by far not a work that speaks to me. But as my advisor used to say, sometimes it’s best to write about art you really hate.” A glutton for punishment, I pick up a copy of exhibition catalogue as I exit through the gift shop.
