WHITNEY BIENNIAL “EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING” 2O24 @ WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART 20 MARCH 2024–11 AUGUST 2024
I’m loving Suzanne Jackson’s sculptural paintings at the Whitney biennial ! I just finished reading #southofpico by Kellie Jones about Black artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s. In the 1970s the only institutions in America ( after a hard fought grassroots battle by Black American artists and Black cultural workers on the west coast ) to show and hire Black artists as curators and museum workers was LACMA in Los Angeles. On the east coast museums like the met and the Whitney weren’t open to the idea of having Black scholars curators and Black museum trustees in the museum and when Black artists were shown at the Whitney in 1970? they were put in a small room in the basement. Suzanne Jackson who at the time was based in San Francisco participated in that show complained in a letter to Samella Lewis saying “ I am not interested in any basement shows for black artists. It is insulting for any artist. If the entire museum was a basement that would surely be a different story — if the politics were straight. There are always so many ifs. Anyway not one of us is too old to have to begin to make compromises at this point. Life is really more beautiful if we stand up consistently for our ideals.” I wonder what she thinks of the whole thing now that she has a full room on the sixth floor.
Other favorites include photograph prints by Carmen Winant, installation by Cannupa Hanska Luger, video installation by Issac Julien, two large paintings by Mary love lace Oneal, drawings by Pippa Garner, and on the bottom row found objects by Ser Sepas.
WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
99 Gansevoort St,
New York, NY 10014
