{"id":510898,"date":"2026-03-08T09:32:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510898\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T09:32:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:32:43","slug":"discover-the-standout-works-at-the-whitney-biennial-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510898\/","title":{"rendered":"Discover the Standout Works at the Whitney Biennial 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the Biennial<\/a>\u00a0at the Whitney Museum of American Art isn\u2019t a little bit chaotic and confrontational, we\u2019d be surprised and maybe disappointed\u2014the world\u2019s signature state-of-contemporary art event is famous for giving us what critic Robert Hughes called (in a different context) \u201cthe shock of the new.\u201d<\/p>\n

I still remember my first Whitney Biennial<\/a>, the famously fractious 1993 edition, during which some visitors were given a button reading I Can\u2019t Ever Imagine Wanting to Be White, a work by Daniel J. Martinez. That meant we were off to the races.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Man<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Bryan Derballa<\/p>\n

The latest edition, running March 8 through August 23, was organized by Whitney curators Marcel Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, and the mood is closer to low-key unease, with occasional flare-ups. There are several sound-based works, which help set an atmosphere and a moody echo throughout the show.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Art<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of Whitney Biennial 2026.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Darian DiCanno\/BFA.com. \u00a9 BFA 2026 <\/p>\n

As Sawyer tells me, one of the many themes is artists who enjoy complicating \u201cthe idea of cuteness.\u201d Pat Oleszko\u2019s giant inflatable Blowhard, (1995), a jester blowing into a horn of fire, should be amusing but is actually sinister; there\u2019s something awkward about how it takes over the room and doesn\u2019t quite fit. \u201cA lot of artists are playing with that to various degrees\u2014something that at first appears non-threatening but is smuggling in a critique or darker idea,\u201d says Sawyer.<\/p>\n

Precious Okoyomon\u2019s Everything wants to kill you and you should be afraid, (2026), is a great example, given the tension between the title and the stuffed animals and taxidermied birds hanging from ropes that comprise the sculpture.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Sculpture<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnna Tsouhlarakis, SHE MUST BE A MATRIARCH, (2023).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Wes Magyar. Collection of Hood Museum of Art, purchased through the Virginia and Preston T. Kelsey 1958 Fund, the Julia L. Whittier Fund, the Acquisition and Preservation of Native American Art Fund, the Alvin and Mary Bert Gutman 1940 Acquisition Fund, the Olivia H. Parker and John O. Parker \u201958 Acquisition Fund, and the William B. and Evelyn A. Jaffe Fund. \u00a9 Anna Tsouhlarakis. Image courtesy MCA Denver.<\/p>\n

Not at all cute, but sure to be Instagrammed, is Anna Tsouhlarakis\u2019s monumental, all-white equestrian piece in fiberglass, SHE MUST BE A MATRIARCH, (2023), an indigenous riff on classical sculpture. The horse doesn\u2019t have a human rider exactly, it has spear-like shapes that turn into pointing hands at the end, and the bubble-like forms of the base turn out to be made of puffy condoms.<\/p>\n

Among sculptures, I responded especially to the totemic Sun Twins, (2023), by Raven Halfmoon<\/a>, a beautifully glazed stoneware piece featuring two figures with somewhat mysterious expressions\u2014they look like they are thinking critically.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Large,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMalcolm Peacock Five of them were hers and she carved shelters with windows into the backs of their skulls, (2024).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art<\/p>\n

The craft that went into Malcolm Peacock\u2019s Five of them were hers and she carved shelters with windows into the backs of their skulls, (2024), is wildly impressive. It\u2019s a huge tree trunk, but made with 3,500 hand-braided strands of synthetic hair that took Peacock 10 months to weave. An exploration of Black communal knowledge, it has pages from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Autobiography of Malcolm X tacked to it, plus an audio accompaniment.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Sculpture<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSula Bermudez-Silverman, blister iii, (2025).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paul Salveson. Courtesy the artist and Hoffman Donahue. <\/p>\n

I was intrigued by the six wall works from Sula Bermudez-Silverman, made of blown glass and steel. The amethyst color of the glass brings you in, but the metal is rusted and takes the form of animal traps. The idea of beauty and violence intertwined is age-old, but it works well, and would be great in a show someday, with the wall works of veteran sculptor Melvin Edwards<\/a>. It jibes with what Sawyer tells me about one of the currents he sees running through the show: \u201cRather than telling people about things, how do you make them feel something intangible?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Abstract<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAziz Hazara, Moon Sightings, (2024).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: \u00a9 Aziz Hazara. Image courtesy the artist and Experimenter Kolkata\/Bombay.<\/p>\n

Surveillance has been a huge theme in the art world over the past decade, and several works take a shot at addressing it. Erin Jane Nelson<\/a> shows a fleet of works that are functional pinhole cameras, but made of ceramic. Aziz Hazara gets a large wall for Moon Sightings, (2024), which look like moody abstractions but turn out to be taken from U.S. military night-vision goggles left over in Afghanistan, where he is from. Cooper Jacoby\u2019s highly elaborate installation Estate (January 21, 2016) mixes surveillance, A.I. models, and interactive cues from viewers (and some other inputs, too), all in the form of door intercoms.<\/p>\n

Sometimes art tells us something about society elliptically, but bluntness has its place, too. I really responded to David L. Johnson\u2019s Rule, for which he simply assembled a long line of rule-laden signs from New York\u2019s semi-public plazas, the kind that developers get a tax break for providing. Usually cramped, stuck into the armpit between an office building and a condo, the plazas have restrictions that make them not really public at all (no rollerblading!). Merely by accumulating and presenting them, he\u2019s made a point that doesn\u2019t come across when you come upon one in the wild.<\/p>\n

Although not a painting-heavy Biennial, it\u2019s hard to resist Carmen de Monteflores\u2019s color-blocked paintings of people, reduced to simple and powerful shapes, especially when paired with the pale bodily sculptures by her daughter, Andrea Fraser, a family affair of figurality.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Folding<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKamrooz Aram, Arabesque Composition (Archipelago), (2025).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: \u00a9 Kamrooz Aram<\/p>\n

Kamrooz Aram, the subject of a great show at Alexander Gray Associates right now, shows four of his elegant abstract paintings, one of which also features a cabinet incorporating a couple of ceramic pieces. Another of Aram\u2019s works has a folding screen, not a canvas, for a base, a move that is part of his interrogation of what kind of art is considered \u201cdecorative,\u201d and who gets to decide that. Regardless of the meta art narrative, he knows how to use curve and color brilliantly. Ali Eyal\u2019s amusingly cartoonish and also touching painting Look Where I Took You, (2026), has a touch of Philip Guston<\/a> in its squishy figures. It depicts a scene from his childhood at the Baghdad amusement park where Eyal\u2019s mother took him in 2003, before they left Iraq.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Digital<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichelle Lopez, still from Pandemonium, (2017-2025).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Image courtesy of the artist <\/p>\n

Ultimately, it may be Michelle Lopez<\/a>\u2019s video Pandemonium, projected on the ceiling, that crystallizes at least one undeniable truth about the show\u2019s themes and the way we live now. It gives us whirling, spiraling mayhem\u2014things are falling apart, but beautifully. That feels like it captures the idea of making art in an unsettled world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Biennial\u00a0at the Whitney Museum of American Art isn\u2019t a little bit chaotic and confrontational, we\u2019d be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,231714,231715,208136,231716,231717],"class_list":["post-510898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-the-whitney-museum","tag-the-whitney-museum-biennial-2026","tag-whitney-biennial","tag-whitney-biennial-2026","tag-whitney-museum-of-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}