Who gets to make it into the Whitney Biennial?
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April 13, 2024

Who gets to make it into the Whitney Biennial? That’s a question we set out to answer this week by analyzing demographic data from the last two editions of the exhibition, including every artist’s age, location, educational background, and pronoun. The results may surprise you. Read below and use the interactive graphs to see what we found.


In other stories, only a week after we published Michelle’s Young story about Richard Serra’s abandoned “Clara-Clara” 1983 sculpture in Paris, city officials told Le Monde they’re considering reinstating the public artwork. In a followup piece, Young suggests new locations for the massive artwork.


Speaking of Paris, read John Yau’s review of new exhibition about American artists who lived and worked in post-war France. Meanwhile, a Munich museum fires a worker who installed his own painting in one of the galleries, and archaeologists unearth remarkably preserved frescos in Pompeii depicting tales from the Trojan War.


Also this week: a look at how Hindu iconography became a tool for nationalism, a review of The Met’s Harlem Renaissance show, Rose B. Simpson’s large-scale installation in the heart of Manhattan, stunning photos from the North American solar eclipse, and so much more. Thanks for reading Hyperallergic!

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

It’s Bye Boomers, Hello Millennials at This Year’s Whitney Biennial

The 81st edition of the renowned exhibition is younger, more geographically diverse, and not so male anymore, Hyperallergic’s analysis shows.

Valentina Di Liscia, Maya Pontone, Elaine Velie, and Ryan Buggy 

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EXHIBITIONS ON OUR RADAR

When Paris Was the Center of New York’s Art World

Americans in Paris at the Grey Art Museum highlights the vibrancy and openness of the Paris scene for Americans.

John Yau 

Sonia Delaunay Was Modernism’s Renaissance Woman

With Sonia Delaunay: Living Art, we get to glimpse pockets of the artist’s work across media, and feel her expansive and collaborative production.

Alice Procter

The Internationalism of the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a globally networked movement of sprawling self-determination energized by the new modalities of Black subjectivity.

Zoe Hopkins

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The Horrors of Being a Middle Age Woman in a Capitalist Society

Shana Moulton’s female protagonist in Meta/Physical Therapy is charmingly overwhelmed by the small mundanities of contemporary life.

Sarah Hromack 

A Romp Through the History of Beauty

Asking the question of how beauty is sold or how beauty trends change would be more effective in The Cult of Beauty than aiming for both and answering neither.

Alice Procter

How Korean Artists Captured and Resisted a Turbulent Political Era

Artists of the silheom misul movement in the 1960s and ‘70s wrestled with an increasingly globalizing, industrializing, and politically censorious Korean art world.

Alex Paik 

ON FILM

The Art World and the American Hustle Meet in Problemista

Julio Torres’s directorial debut takes a fantastical approach to depicting the very real trials of immigration and creative work.

Eileen G'Sell

Benshi Performers Pass Along a Way of Thinking

Ichirō Kataoka and Kumiko Ōmori tell Hyperallergic about the modern-day conventions and challenges of the Japanese art of narrating silent films.

Dan Schindel

The Uneasy Heartbreak of End of Evangelion

More than a quarter century after its original release, US audiences can finally watch Hideaki Anno’s mecha anime masterpiece in theaters. 

Michael Piantini

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ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC

Rose B. Simpson’s Soaring Metal Sentinels Watch Over Madison Square Park

The artist explained that the sculptures in Seed “transform the nature of a hectic and scary city, in a sense, to a place that’s really safe.”

Elaine Velie

How Hindu Iconography Became an Extension of Right-Wing Nationalism

Ubiquitous imagery of aggressive, hypermasculine deities across India is a chilling tool of the Hindu right.

Nadia Nooreyezdan

What’s Behind Our Emotional Reactions to Art?

Scientists are conducting studies and using eye-tracking technology to investigate whether it’s possible to articulate the experience of viewing art.

Eliza Goodpasture

Should I Trust My Art Dealer?

A look at the failed, racially charged takedown of dealer-activist Amar Singh.

Renée Cox

Required Reading

This week, Eid in Gaza, Arizona’s draconian anti-abortion law, a TikTok critic’s honest review of the eclipse, trolling Eric Adams, postmodern Bob Ross, and more.

Lakshmi Rivera Amin and Elaine Velie

IN OUR STORE

Guerrilla Girls Handkerchief

This handkerchief by intersectional feminist activist-artist group Guerrilla Girls makes for a polite but firm reminder that most art collections are embarrassingly lacking in their representation of work by women.


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