Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Mar 20–Aug 11, 2024

The eighty-first edition of the Whitney Biennial—the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States—features seventy-one artists and collectives grappling with many of today’s most pressing issues. This Biennial is like being inside a “dissonant chorus," as participating artist Ligia Lewis described it, a provocative yet intimate experience of distinct and disparate voices that collectively probe the cracks and fissures of the unfolding moment.

The exhibition’s subtitle, Even Better Than the Real Thing, acknowledges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is complicating our understanding of what is real, and rhetoric around gender and authenticity is being used politically and legally to perpetuate transphobia and restrict bodily autonomy. These developments are part of a long history of deeming people of marginalized race, gender, and ability as subhuman—less than real. In making this exhibition, we committed to amplifying the voices of artists who are confronting these legacies, and to providing a space where difficult ideas can be engaged and considered.

This Biennial is a gathering of artists who explore the permeability of the relationships between mind and body, the fluidity of identity, and the growing precariousness of the natural and constructed worlds around us. Whether through subversive humor, expressive abstraction, or non-Western forms of cosmological thinking, to name but a few of their methods, these artists demonstrate that there are pathways to be found, strategies of coping and healing to be discovered, and ways to come together even in a fractured time.

The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator and Meg Onli, Curator at Large, with Min Sun Jeon and Beatriz Cifuentes. The performance program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curator Taja Cheek. The film program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker.

View the film and performance program

Review accessibility information before visiting the 2024 Whitney Biennial.

Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing is presented by

The exhibition is also sponsored by

     

     

Generous support is provided by Judy Hart Angelo; The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston; David Cancel and Family; Lise and Michael Evans; Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely; the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation; The Rosenkranz Foundation; Marcia Dunn and Jonathan Sobel; and the Whitney’s National Committee.

Major support is provided by The Keith Haring Foundation Exhibition Fund.

Significant support is provided by the 2024 Biennial Committee Co-Chairs: Sarah Arison, Paul Arnhold, Jill Bikoff, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Miyoung Lee, Joel Lubin, Michael Kassan, and George Wells; 2024 Biennial Committee members: Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul, Alexandre and Lori Chemla, Suzanne and Bob Cochran, Deepa Kumaraiah and Sean Dempsey, Sheree and Jerry Friedman, Further Forward Foundation, Ashley Leeds and Christopher Harland, the Kapadia Equity Fund, Dawn and David Lenhardt, the McCallum Family, Orentreich Family Foundation, Nancy and Fred Poses, Jonathan M. Rozoff, Katherine Sachs, Alice and Manu Sareen, Annette and Paul Smith, and Patricia J. Villareal and Thomas S. Leatherbury; and Susan and Matthew Blank, James Keith (JK) Brown and Eric Diefenbach, Jung and Nelson Chai, Jill Cowan and Stephen Davis, Martha and Paddy Farrell, Melanie Shorin and Greg S. Feldman, Charlotte Feng Ford, Cindy and Mark Galant, Christy and Bill Gautreaux, Debra and Jeffrey Geller Family Foundation, Judelson Family Foundation, Peter H. Kahng, Cathy M. Kaplan, Lisa H. Kim and Eunu Chun, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Iris Z. Marden, Marjorie Mayrock, Shelley and David Sonenberg, Gloria H. Spivak, Jackson Tang, and anonymous donors.

Biennial funding is also provided by endowments created by Melva Bucksbaum, Emily Fisher Landau, Leonard A. Lauder, and Fern and Lenard Tessler as well as the Adam D. Weinberg Artists First Fund.

Curatorial research and travel for this exhibition were funded by an endowment established by Rosina Lee Yue and Bert A. Lies, Jr., MD.

New York magazine is the exclusive media sponsor.

The Whitney Biennial and the Hyundai Terrace Commission are a multiyear partnership with Hyundai Motor. The Hyundai Terrace Commission is an annual site-specific installation on the Whitney Museum’s fifth-floor outdoor gallery.

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In the News

“The 81st edition of this closely watched survey of contemporary art is the best in a decade” —The Washington Post

“…timelier than ever…” —The Wall Street Journal

“It’s the most challenging Whitney Biennial in several editions, and also the best since 2017” —ARTnews 

“…if art is your refuge, this biennial is for you” —The New York Times

“…it’s for the public” —New York Magazine 

“...one of the most important showcases for American contemporary art” —NPR

“...several works shine with wit and insight about the human body” —The New Yorker 

“…there is an overarching sense of commitment to many small acts carried out with kindness and care, and those artifacts of touch build into a significant feeling of tenderness and generosity” —The Brooklyn Rail 

“This Biennial, a ‘dissonant chorus,’ sings the rallying cry of a diverse cohort of artists trying almost everything to capture a reality we can all agree on” —Brooklyn Magazine 

“Once again, the Whitney presents a powerful and provocative exhibition across four floors” —TimeOut 

“…this year’s Whitney Biennial is a winner” —Observer

“…an impressive and beautiful showcase” —Frieze

“...each artist tells a personal story to build a mosaic of the American reality” —Elephant

“This year's Whitney Biennial explores the most critical and contemporary issues facing the United States…” —Ocula

“...the work on view tends to evade simple summarising and reduction, instead rewarding the kind of close examination and prolonged engagement that reveals the textures and details of lived experience” —The Art Newspaper

“Materially and thematically robust, the biennial offers insight into some of the most promising creative voices in American art, from the emerging to the established” —Artsy

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Learn more about the Whitney Biennial, the longest-running survey of American art.

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