These Two Biennials Highlight New York’s Art Spring Through Two Visions

These two biennials highlight New York’s art spring through two visions

Art in New York this spring is doing far more than occupying gallery walls; it is testing the emotional and philosophical limits of the present moment. Two major biennials now unfold across Manhattan, each offering a distinct vision of what contemporary art can be when the world itself feels unsettled. At the southern edge of the island, the Whitney Biennial occupies the luminous architecture of the Whitney Museum of American Art, continuing a t…

The Whitney Biennial Is Here

My god, it’s beautiful out. Spring in New York really makes you work for it, but then it makes it worth your while. Just in time. This (very likely temporary) warmth coincides with the start of the peak art season, starting with the Whitney Biennial, which opened to the public on Sunday. Read below for some of our editors’ first impressions, including what we liked, what we didn’t, and what we’re ambivalent about. Spoiler: Associate Editor Laksh…

For Andrea Fraser and Carmen de Monteflores, Showing at the Whitney Biennial Is Like 'Family Therapy'

Photography by Tom ScanlanAndrea Fraser and Carmen de Monteflores. The artist Andrea Fraser warns me what might happen when she and her 92-year-old mother, Carmen de Monteflores, start talking about art. “It becomes a bit of a family therapy session,” she says. The two women are at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where they are presenting work side by side in the Whitney Biennial. This is Fraser’s third time in the storied exhibi…