The artists selected for the 2019 Whitney Biennial, ranging from emerging to well-established individuals and collectives, are working in painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, film and video, photography, performance, and sound. Work will be presented throughout the Fifth and Sixth Floor exhibition galleries, as well as in numerous spaces both inside and outside the Museum. The curators traveled throughout the country and made more than 300 studio visits over the past year.

Jane Panetta remarked: “Ru and I especially focused on emerging artists and first time Biennial participants: approximately seventy-five percent of the artists in the show are under forty and only five have previously appeared in a Whitney Biennial. In part, this emphasis resulted from what we saw during our research across the as we were struck by the profound difficulties of our current moment and the ways in which so many artists we encountered are struggling and facing fewer opportunities to present their work publicly.” Rujeko Hockley noted, “Although intentionally broad in scope, the exhibition explores key themes, including the mining of history in order to reimagine the present or future, a profound and sustained consideration of questions of equity along financial, racial, and sexual lines, a concern with climate change, and explorations of the vulnerability of the body. Artists in the exhibition are engaged with notions of what community means and can provide while using art to confront and cope with our current world.”

The 2019 Whitney Biennial will be organized by Jane Panetta, associate curator, and Rujeko Hockley, assistant curator.

Participating artists:

Eddie Arroyo, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Olga Balema, Morgan Bassichis, Blitz Bazawule, Alexandra Bell, Brian Belott, Meriem Bennani, Robert Bittenbender, Lucas Blalock, Garrett Bradley, Milano Chow, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, Thirza Cuthand, John Edmonds, Nicole Eisenman, Janiva Ellis, Kota Ezawa, Brendan Fernandes, FIERCE and Paper Tiger Television, Marcus Fischer, Forensic Architecture, Ellie Ga, Nicholas Galanin, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Jeffrey Gibson, Todd Gray, Sam Green, Barbara Hammer, Ilana Harris-Babou, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Curran Hatleberg, Madeline Hollander, Iman Issa, Tomashi Jackson, Steffani Jemison, Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys, Christine Sun Kim, Josh Kline, Autumn Knight, Carolyn Lazard, Maia Ruth Lee, Simone Leigh, Daniel Lind-Ramos, James Luna, Eric N. Mack, Calvin Marcus, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Troy Michie, Joe Minter, Keegan Monaghan, Caroline Monnet, Darius Clark Monroe, Ragen Moss, Sahra Motalebi, Marlon Mullen, Jeanette Mundt, Wangechi Mutu, Las Nietas de Nonó
Jenn Nkiru, Laura Ortman, Jennifer Packer, nibia pastrana santiago, Elle Pérez, Pat Phillips, Gala Porras-Kim, Walter Price, Carissa Rodriguez, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Heji Shin, Diane Simpson, Martine Syms, Kyle Thurman, Mariana Valencia, Agustina Woodgate

Find more about the Whitney Biennial from the website.