Whitney Museum of American Art

05/05/2021

Over the past few weeks, Jules Allen photographed the final stages of construction of Day's End, David Hammons's new public sculpture in Hudson River Park's Gansevoort Peninsula.

Allen met artist David Hammons decades ago in a chance encounter—the two have remained friends and fellow artists to this day. "I learned about making photographs from David Hammons," Allen said. Last week, the photographer captured Hammons looking on at his sculpture finally nearing completion after years of planning and construction.

Read more about Day's End: https://bit.ly/32IP0zc #DaysEnd
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Photo: © 2021 Jules Allen Photography

05/05/2021

Dawoud Bey at the Whitney — quietly spectacular

Financial Times critic Ariella Budick describes Dawoud Bey: An American Project at the Whitney as "quietly spectacular." Read the review below.

From collaborative portraits to allusive landscapes, the photographer’s often tough themes are composed with elegance

05/05/2021

Want to Kick Poker Night Up a Notch? A Playing-Card Company Has Teamed Up With the Whitney to Release Artist-Designed Decks

The Whitney Shop has teamed up with speciality playing-card designer theory11 to produce a series of playing cards designed by artists. Check out the deck designed by Shantell Martin (now available!) and read more via @artnet. 👇

Theory 11 has teamed up with the Whitney Museum of American Art to produce a series of playing cards designed by prominent artists.

05/04/2021

This Thursday, May 6, at 7 pm, join Elisabeth Sherman, assistant curator, and Ambika Trasi, curatorial assistant, for a virtual conversation about Dawoud Bey: An American Project.

The exhibition examines Dawoud Bey's poignant photographic meditations on visibility, power, and race throughout his career. For the event, the curatorial team will provide an overview of the exhibition and then answer questions from the audience. Register for free: https://bit.ly/3u89TP7
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Dawoud Bey, Untitled #25 (Lake Erie and Sky), from Night Coming Tenderly, Black, 2017. Gelatin silver print, 44 × 55 in. (111.8 × 139.7 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Accessions Committee Fund purchase. © Dawoud Bey

This Thursday, May 6, at 7 pm, join Elisabeth Sherman, assistant curator, and Ambika Trasi, curatorial assistant, for a virtual conversation about Dawoud Bey: An American Project.

The exhibition examines Dawoud Bey's poignant photographic meditations on visibility, power, and race throughout his career. For the event, the curatorial team will provide an overview of the exhibition and then answer questions from the audience. Register for free: https://bit.ly/3u89TP7
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Dawoud Bey, Untitled #25 (Lake Erie and Sky), from Night Coming Tenderly, Black, 2017. Gelatin silver print, 44 × 55 in. (111.8 × 139.7 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Accessions Committee Fund purchase. © Dawoud Bey

05/04/2021

Taking A Look Back At The Profound Photos Of Dawoud Bey

"I hope that I’d be remembered as someone who practiced their craft at the highest level of rigor and made work about things in the world that really mattered."—Artist Dawoud Bey speaks with BuzzFeed News on the occasion of his exhibition at the Whitney

BuzzFeed News interviewed Dawoud Bey about his extraordinary career documenting the Black experience in America.

05/03/2021

This is a Whitney first: We're thrilled to announce the launch of our new podcast! Hosted by artist Carrie Mae Weems, Artists Among Us is a podcast about American art and culture.

The podcast series is focused on David Hammons's new sculpture Day's End—a monumental, permanent public art installation in Hudson River Park that pays tribute to a long-destroyed 1975 artwork of the same name by Gordon Matta-Clark. We'll follow the evolution of the Manhattan coastline through the history of the Meatpacking District, and celebrate the communities that have shaped the neighborhood where the Whitney now stands.

Learn more and subscribe now: https://bit.ly/2RaIzRM! The first episode drops on Friday, May 14.

This is a Whitney first: We're thrilled to announce the launch of our new podcast! Hosted by artist Carrie Mae Weems, Artists Among Us is a podcast about American art and culture.

The podcast series is focused on David Hammons's new sculpture Day's End—a monumental, permanent public art installation in Hudson River Park that pays tribute to a long-destroyed 1975 artwork of the same name by Gordon Matta-Clark. We'll follow the evolution of the Manhattan coastline through the history of the Meatpacking District, and celebrate the communities that have shaped the neighborhood where the Whitney now stands.

Learn more and subscribe now: https://bit.ly/2RaIzRM! The first episode drops on Friday, May 14.

05/03/2021

A Photographer Looks Deep Into America’s Past

"Across two floors and nearly five decades of work, the exhibition distinguishes Bey within the canon of American photography as an artist whose adaptations to the technical changes within his craft have not come at the expense of his ethical commitment to portraying Black life in all its richness and complexity."—The New York Times's Tausif Noor reviews Dawoud Bey: An American Project

Dawoud Bey’s images at the Whitney Museum expose rich histories hidden beneath the surface, how places evolve over time.

05/02/2021

Mother's Day is just one week away! 💐 The Whitney Shop has a selection of unique gifts—from artist-made objects to beautiful art books and eclectic accessories—for mothers of all kinds. Plus, don't forget about the ultimate Whitney gift for any art lover—a gift membership. Recipients enjoy unlimited free admission, half-priced guest tickets, and previews, as well as discounts at the shop and cafe.

Explore an assortment of both traditional and unexpected treasures online here: https://bit.ly/332O0Vs

Mother's Day is just one week away! 💐 The Whitney Shop has a selection of unique gifts—from artist-made objects to beautiful art books and eclectic accessories—for mothers of all kinds. Plus, don't forget about the ultimate Whitney gift for any art lover—a gift membership. Recipients enjoy unlimited free admission, half-priced guest tickets, and previews, as well as discounts at the shop and cafe.

Explore an assortment of both traditional and unexpected treasures online here: https://bit.ly/332O0Vs

05/01/2021

Now open! Dave McKenzie: The Story I Tell Myself presents McKenzie's videos and performances for the camera alongside works from the Whitney's collection by artists who have informed the concepts, gestures, and sensibilities in his work.

The exhibition runs parallel to Disturbing the View, McKenzie's Whitney-commissioned performance. Inspired by the entrepreneurial window washers common in many American cities, the artist choreographs a circuitous path around the Museum using the building's facade as a canvas and obscuring the expected views.

Starting today and running through June 12, McKenzie will perform Disturbing the View on Fridays and Saturdays beginning at 1 pm.

Read more: https://bit.ly/3gVPmJJ
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Dave McKenzie, rehearsal of Disturbing the View, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2020. Image: Alex Munro

Now open! Dave McKenzie: The Story I Tell Myself presents McKenzie's videos and performances for the camera alongside works from the Whitney's collection by artists who have informed the concepts, gestures, and sensibilities in his work.

The exhibition runs parallel to Disturbing the View, McKenzie's Whitney-commissioned performance. Inspired by the entrepreneurial window washers common in many American cities, the artist choreographs a circuitous path around the Museum using the building's facade as a canvas and obscuring the expected views.

Starting today and running through June 12, McKenzie will perform Disturbing the View on Fridays and Saturdays beginning at 1 pm.

Read more: https://bit.ly/3gVPmJJ
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Dave McKenzie, rehearsal of Disturbing the View, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2020. Image: Alex Munro

04/30/2021

David Hammons's monumental public sculpture Day's End is done

"Day's End is a sort of ghostly memorial to the site's artistic and social history," writes The Art Newspaper on David Hammons's new public sculpture in Hudson River Park. Read more 👇

The steel frame structure, which recreates the outline of a former warehouse on the Hudson River, is now a permanent fixture on the shoreline

04/30/2021

Curator Rujeko Hockley on How She Landed a Museum Career Straight Out of College, and the Advice She'd Give Her Younger Self

"I would encourage myself to have faith. I think that means both in the work and also in yourself, in your capacity and ability."—Rujeko Hockley speaks with artnet about her career and work at the Whitney.

How curator Rujeko Hockley got her start at the Studio Museum in Harlem and worked her way to the Whitney Museum.

04/29/2021

David Hammons's Day's End

Construction on David Hammons's Day's End is officially complete. Seven years after the artist proposed the project, the public sculpture is permanently at home across from the Museum in Hudson River Park.

We look forward to celebrating this gift to all New Yorkers in the coming weeks! Read more about this monumental artwork: https://bit.ly/32IP0zc

04/29/2021

Jane Wilson, American painter, was born on this day in 1928.

Perhaps most recognized for her landscapes, Wilson also painted still lifes such as this one set in her apartment and studio beginning in the late 1960s. About these works Wilson said, "Here my impulse is to pull the background as far forward as possible, to push the subject back into it; to reduce the specific—to insist on the paint and the painting."
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Jane Wilson, Milk and Mat Knife, 1970. Oil on linen, 15 × 21 in. (38.1 × 53.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; bequest of the artist 2017.37. © The Estate of Jane Wilson. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York

Jane Wilson, American painter, was born on this day in 1928.

Perhaps most recognized for her landscapes, Wilson also painted still lifes such as this one set in her apartment and studio beginning in the late 1960s. About these works Wilson said, "Here my impulse is to pull the background as far forward as possible, to push the subject back into it; to reduce the specific—to insist on the paint and the painting."
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Jane Wilson, Milk and Mat Knife, 1970. Oil on linen, 15 × 21 in. (38.1 × 53.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; bequest of the artist 2017.37. © The Estate of Jane Wilson. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York

04/27/2021

Today's spotlight on our Julie Mehretu virtual tour is the monumental 2001 painting Retopistics: A Renegade Excavation. Mehretu made this work—which measures over 17 feet long!—while she was living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, during her residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem.

In the early 2000s, Mehretu began to work in painting cycles, creating loose, interrelated narratives across different bodies of work. Retopistics is her first large-scale, wide-angled perspective on a dynamic, invented space. "I started to be really interested in ways of transit and ways of mobility and ways of migration and movement patterns, social movement patterns, in differently interconnected reality," Mehretu said.

Hear the artist herself discuss this painting here: https://bit.ly/3tXp2Tg, and don't miss Julie Mehretu, which is on view through August 8.
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Installation view of Julie Mehretu (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 25, 2021–August 8, 2021). Photo: Ryan Lowry

Today's spotlight on our Julie Mehretu virtual tour is the monumental 2001 painting Retopistics: A Renegade Excavation. Mehretu made this work—which measures over 17 feet long!—while she was living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, during her residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem.

In the early 2000s, Mehretu began to work in painting cycles, creating loose, interrelated narratives across different bodies of work. Retopistics is her first large-scale, wide-angled perspective on a dynamic, invented space. "I started to be really interested in ways of transit and ways of mobility and ways of migration and movement patterns, social movement patterns, in differently interconnected reality," Mehretu said.

Hear the artist herself discuss this painting here: https://bit.ly/3tXp2Tg, and don't miss Julie Mehretu, which is on view through August 8.
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Installation view of Julie Mehretu (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 25, 2021–August 8, 2021). Photo: Ryan Lowry

04/26/2021

Enjoy spring at the Whitney and spend your day immersed in the abstract world of Julie Mehretu. Take in soaring views from our outdoor terraces and discover Julie Mehretu’s panoramic art in her mid-career survey. Book timed tickets: https://whitney.org/ticketing-services

Installation view of Julie Mehretu (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 25, 2021–August 8, 2021). Photograph by Ryan Lowry

Enjoy spring at the Whitney and spend your day immersed in the abstract world of Julie Mehretu. Take in soaring views from our outdoor terraces and discover Julie Mehretu’s panoramic art in her mid-career survey. Book timed tickets: https://whitney.org/ticketing-services

Installation view of Julie Mehretu (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 25, 2021–August 8, 2021). Photograph by Ryan Lowry

04/26/2021

David Hammons's Day's End

Something big is coming soon...

Leading up to the unveiling of David Hammons's Day's End, we're sharing some of the remarkable footage showing how the sculpture has come together. In October 2020, in the dark of night, steel beams arrived by truck at the construction site on Gansevoort Peninsula, with the glow of the illuminated Whitney in the background.

Read more about this monumental public sculpture: https://bit.ly/32IP0zc

04/25/2021

It's Cy Twombly's birthday! The abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer was born #onthisday in 1928.

Twombly is best known for his scribbles and smudges like the ones here in Untitled (1964/84). The artist began this painting in 1964, returning to complete it twenty (!) years later. Among the graphite scrawls and swooping white lines, Twombly hid written phrases. In the canvas's upper-left region, a fragment of a sentence reads "a shadow of the dream," which appears in the writings of both Shakespeare and John Keats.
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Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1964/1984. Oil stick, wax crayon and graphite on canvas, 80 1/2 × 98 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (204.5 × 249.6 × 3.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; promised gift of Emily Fisher Landau P.2010.351. © Cy Twombly Foundation

It's Cy Twombly's birthday! The abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer was born #onthisday in 1928.

Twombly is best known for his scribbles and smudges like the ones here in Untitled (1964/84). The artist began this painting in 1964, returning to complete it twenty (!) years later. Among the graphite scrawls and swooping white lines, Twombly hid written phrases. In the canvas's upper-left region, a fragment of a sentence reads "a shadow of the dream," which appears in the writings of both Shakespeare and John Keats.
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Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1964/1984. Oil stick, wax crayon and graphite on canvas, 80 1/2 × 98 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (204.5 × 249.6 × 3.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; promised gift of Emily Fisher Landau P.2010.351. © Cy Twombly Foundation

04/24/2021

Nicole Soto Rodríguez, Acto #2 Templo Del Maestro

In Acto #2 Templo del Maestro—a video work recently acquired by the Whitney—Puerto Rican dancer and choreographer Nicole Soto Rodríguez poetically examines Templo del Maestro. This historic, now neglected, building in San Juan was built in 1934 and was once the headquarters of the teachers' union.

Shot for the camera and without assistance, the dancer's movements are infused by the sounds of birds, the city, and debris crackling underfoot. Abandonment, as the title of this series is called, refers both to the physical state of the building as well as to the feeling of being abandoned by the state. Soto Rodríguez's performance is an elegiac dialogue with a building that once symbolized the rights of teachers and the promise of education.
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Nicole Soto Rodríguez, Acto #2 Templo Del Maestro from Serie sobre Abandono, 2015. Video, color, sound, 16:47 min. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Film and Video Committee