The seventy-sixth Whitney Biennial in 2012 will be co-curated by Independent curator Jay Sanders and the Whitney’s Elisabeth Sussman. The series of annual and biennial exhibitions was inaugurated in 1932 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and has continued to be a fixture of important international art events for the last 80 years. The signature survey of contemporary American art opens in March 2012. The list of the selected artists will be announced at the end of 2011 or early 2012.
This year,Jay Sanders has been chosen to co-coordinate the show. Saunders was director at Greene Naftali Gallery in New York, where he organized major monographic exhibitions of the artist/filmmakers Tony Conrad and Paul Sharits, along with shows by Allen Ruppersberg, Guy de Cointet, and others. Curated group exhibitions at the gallery include “Payday,” “Epileptic Seizure Comparison,” and “Motore Immobile.” In addition to organizing innumerable exhibitions, concerts, and readings over the past decade, Sanders’s recent projects as a curator include organizing a ten-day continuous screening installation, ITWAN, as part of the exhibition “Film Programme” at IPS International Project Space, Birmingham, UK, presented in November 2010. In 2008 he curated “Looking Back: The Third White Columns Annual” at White Columns, New York.
Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s chief curator and deputy director for programs, said, “Over the past three decades, Elisabeth has distinguished herself as one of the premier curators in the field. Her recent historical exhibitions have had tremendous impact on a younger generation of artists whom she has also been actively acquiring for our collection. Through his writings and exhibitions, Jay has demonstrated a highly innovative sensibility, championing the work of emerging artists and older figures who feel newly relevant in our time. Together, their unique points of view will combine to create what I’m sure will be significant statement about art today. Elisabeth Sussman is curator and Sondra Gilman curator of photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art where her exhibition “Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective,” co-curated with Lynn Zelevansky, is currently on view through January 9, 2011. Most recently, she co-curated (with Thomas Weski) “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008,” which was on a four-venue international tour beginning at the Whitney, and is now on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Sussman’s “Gordon Matta-Clark: ‘You Are the Measure’” was awarded the AICA award for best monographic show in New York (2007–2008). She has organized many other Whitney exhibitions including “Remote Viewing: Invented Worlds in Recent Painting and Drawing” (2005); “Mike Kelley: Catholic Tastes” (1991); “Nan Goldin: I’ll Be Your Mirror” (1996), with David Armstrong; “Keith Haring” (1997); and the Museum’s 1993 Biennial Exhibition.
The Whitney Biennial is always used as a barometer for trend spotting within the contemporary art scene. It mixes established with emerging Artists and is always an exciting event.
Photo: Creative Commons Whitney Museum of American Art Author Gryffindor Link