Generally, my conversations about the Whittney Biennial, on view through August 11, have invoked the word ‘meh’. In other, less onomatopoeic terms, friends and critics have used the word ‘safe’ to describe the show. Its title, Even Better Than the Real Thing, promises grandeur, perhaps a revelation, and its introductory texts discuss as its ‘apex’ concern, Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI is either a burgeoning crisis, a grand promise, or flat note. It may very well reshape the next century. In the two years since the 2022 Biennial, Quiet as It’s Kept, AI has largely gone from academic abstraction to sleekly packaged consumer tools, broadly distributed and precisely engineered to help middle schoolers cheat on their homework and to enable corporate employees to send obtuse emails. So is it really better than the real thing? The Whitney Biennial offers no answers, and few opportunities for reflection.
Just past the elevator of The Whitney’s top floor, you are immediately greeted by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s, xhairymutantx Embedding Study 1 (2024), which exclaims itself as an AI-generated portrait. To read about the work is to understand that its artists offer a nuanced critique of AI training practices and the notion of representation within the context of generative intelligence. To behold it in the Whitney is to leave context by the wayside and instead understand, ‘I am looking at an AI portrait’. In fact, the work is intriguing, a meditation on the archive, digital identity and agency, and machine learning bias––among other things. It is a complicated project, and one which has an online component (https://xhairymutantx.whitney.org/) where users can create their own distorted images using AI.
The title and premise of the Biennial is as promising as it is purportedly progressive. The notion of ‘the real’ has come under question in the United States. Reality is both positioned as a credential and a criticism. In The Whitney’s words, the show seeks to combat “rhetoric around ‘authenticity’ that is used to perpetuate transphobia and restrict body autonomy in the United States.” Sharp writing? Yes. A guiding thread to the show? Not so much. And yet, throughout the show, subjective reality is repositioned as an answer to ‘authenticity’. Unfortunately, the Biennial’s credo is mere truism, and the works on show do little to engage in robust debate. The curatorial framework seems to be urgent, almost an emergency siren; it is one many working artists believe the country needs. So where is that charge in the show?
In the spirit of the exhibition, the following is ChatGPT 3.5’s brief list of Biennial Grievances: “The 2024 Whitney Biennial: Even Better Than the Real Thing boasts a sprawling collection of artworks purportedly addressing contemporary social and cultural dilemmas, yet its grandiose claims of inclusivity and relevance falter upon closer examination. Despite its purported mission to represent diverse perspectives, the exhibition remains marred by glaring gaps in representation and fails to adequately accommodate visitors with disabilities, revealing a blatant disregard for true inclusivity. Furthermore, its shallow engagement with critical discourse and thematic exploration renders it little more than a superficial spectacle, devoid of the intellectual rigor necessary for meaningful dialogue and evaluation.” This review is sharp, and culls from the buzziest progressive discourse to make its point. But it lacks a heart; it doesn't have the irrational, dreaming, aspirational, hopeless drive that characterizes the best writing and the best art.
To me, The Whitney Biennial felt like it fell for this pitfall, and did its artists a disservice in the process. There are truly delightful works in the show. Lifelike, a video piece by Dora Budor, investigates the corporate hellscape of Hudson Yards with a roving and trembling iPhone. Jes Fan’s Gut exists at a cool, but feeling intersection of technology and art. Julia Phillips’s Nourisher is a formally and theoretically sophisticated mediation.
But the true showstopper was Carmen Winant’s monumental installation of 2,500 prints of the spectacular, intimate, and banal moments that constitute abortion care in the United States. This prescient piece felt fulfilling of the Biennial’s purpose. The overturning of Roe v. Wade will be a generation-defining milestone, and its impact has already been devastating. Winant brings together a vast collection of small photographic prints of a medical procedure almost always discussed euphemistically or in abstracting language. Her images are drawn from archives and are purposeful, blunt even. Across their connections, a compassionate human portrait emerges. It is a courageous work, and will surely beget difficult conversation and reflection for many visitors. Many American artists are dealing with questions of this urgency and with a similar punch as Winant. So where was their work in the 2024 Whitney Biennial?
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20–August 11, 2024). Demian DinéYazhi ́, we must stop imaging apocalypse / genocide + we must imagine liberation, 2024. Photograph by Nora Gomez-Strauss
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20–August 11, 2024). Kiyan Williams, Ruins of Empire II or The Earth Swallows the Master’s House, 2024. Photograph by Audrey Wang
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20–August 11, 2024). Rose B. Simpson, Daughters: Reverence, 2024. Photograph by Audrey Wang
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20- August 11, 2024). From left to right: Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion, 2023; Julia Phillips, Mediator, 2020; Harmony Hammond, Patched, 2022; Harmony Hammond, Black Cross II, 2020-21; Harmony Hammond, Chenille #11, 2020-21. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20–August 11, 2024). Carmen Winant, The last safe abortion, 2023. Photograph by Filip Wolak
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20–August 11, 2024). Isaac Julien, Once Again... (Statues Never Die), 2022. Photograph by Ashley Reese
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 20–August 11, 2024). Lotus L. Kang, In Cascades, 2023. Photograph by Filip Wolak
