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    A Major Retrospective in Hamburg Shines New Light on Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Germany’s Premier Postwar Painter

    The Modernist painter Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902–1968) has long been a staple of German public collections, beloved for his saturated colors and dynamic compositions, which were inflected by Expressionism, Art Informel, and abstraction over the course of his career. Yet even in his home country, there are still dimensions of his work that remain to be discovered, and a retrospective now on view at the Hamburger Kunsthalle—of 120 paintings, watercolors, and drawings, the largest show of his oeuvre in 30 years—seeks to contextualize lesser-known works and introduce Nay’s practice to new audiences.
    “The exhibition is the first comprehensive show in decades, and it is addressed to a new generation of viewers and people who might not be so aware” of the artist’s early career, explained Aurel Scheibler, chairman of the board of the Ernst Wilhelm Nay Foundation, which was created in 2005. “It shows a thread that connects all these different periods of his work.” (Scheibler, who is also an art dealer based in Berlin, is the step-grandson of Nay.)
    Exhibition view of Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s retrospective at Hamburger Kunsthalle. Courtesy Ernst Wilhelm Nay Stiftung.
    Nay, who studied under Karl Hofer at Berlin’s Akademie der Künste, began painting in the late 1910s and was an accomplished artist by the outbreak of World War II. His work was labeled as “degenerate art” and around ten of his works were confiscated from museum collections. The artist himself destroyed one of his own works for fear of reprisal.
    In need of money, Nay joined the army in 1939 and was posted to the Eastern front, followed by France. He managed to continue to make art when he was off duty, painting for a time at the studio of an amateur artist he befriended in France. His studio in Berlin was bombed during air raids of the German capital. “He was more free to work [abroad] than in Berlin,” Scheibler said, but “it was hard to get canvases, so he made more so gouaches and works on paper.” Scheibler added that this period of work, as well as that from just before the war, is very rare and of great interest to collectors.
    After the war, Nay’s international career took off when he participated in the Venice Biennale in 1948 and the first-ever Documenta in Kassel in 1955 (its curator, Arnold Bode, would also include him in the next two editions). In 1956, Nay represented Germany at the Venice Biennale. He caused a stir at the third Documenta when he presented his now-celebrated “Eye Paintings,” which were hung from the ceiling—a move that divided audiences at the time. He died in his studio in Cologne in 1968.
    Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Couple with butterflies (1939). Alexeyev-Brandl Collection. © Ernst Wilhelm Nay Foundation. VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022. Photo: Trevor Good.
    Magdalene Claesges, scientific director and head of the Nay foundation’s archives in Cologne, said that scholarly and market focus has predominantly been on his famous “Disk Paintings,” and the retrospective—which was curated by Karin Schick—seeks to offer a more polyphonic perspective on his career, which went through many other phases.
    Works from between 1954 and 1962 known as the “Scheibenbilder” have long been in demand: a painting from the period, titled Scheiben und Halbscheiben (1955),set a record for the artist at Ketterer Kunst in 2017, selling for €2.3 million ($2.6 million), well above its €250,000 ($412,007) estimate, according to the Artnet Price Database.
    But other periods, including that of the “Fugale Bilder,” which preceded it from 1949 to 1951, have been overlooked and under-studied, Scheibler noted. “This period of his work marks a transition from the more figurative work he was making in the 1940s to his later works, which are more abstract. It is a period that is more flat and constructed,” he said.
    Though interest in the artist in Germany has long been strong, more recently major institutions in Europe have made moves to collect his work. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, which acquired Inferno Hallelujah (1964), a moody canvas with his iconic eyes in deep crimsons and blues, in 2014, while the Musée National d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris acquired Blau—Orange und Gelb (1967) in 2016. Scheibler said, “People are rediscovering him as one of the major postwar painters of Europe.”
    Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s retrospective is on view at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany, March 25 through August 7, 2022.
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    In Pictures: See Elmgreen and Dragset’s Unsettling New Exhibition About the Human Body in the Post-Industrial Age

    Elmgreen and Dragset have taken over the Fondazione Prada in Milan for a show titled”Useless Bodies?” that focuses on Big Tech and its impact on our lives.
    The works, according to an exhibition statement, explore “present condition of the body in the post-industrial age, in which it seems that our physical presence is losing its centrality.”
    The body, indeed, may even now be “completely superfluous.”
    “One could claim our physical selves have even become more of an obstacle than an advantage,” the artists said in a statement. “Twenty years into the 21st century, the status of the body is now that of the product—with our data gathered and sold by Big Tech.”
    Many of the figures in the works are in precarious positions: climbing walls, perched atop a ladder, stuffed into the backseat of a car, and—in one particularly unsettling case—rolled half inside a morgue’s cooling freezer.
    See more works from the show below.
    “Elmgreen & Dragset: Useless Bodies?” is on view through August 22, 2022.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Elmgreen & Dragset’s Watching (2021) in the exhibition “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Elmgreen & Dragset’s Piscina di Largo Iscaro (2021) in the exhibition “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Elmgreen & Dragset’s What’s Left? (2021) in the exhibition “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Elmgreen & Dragset, Bogdan (2020). Courtesy: KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin, London, Seoul Photo by: Roman März.
    Elmgreen & Dragset, The Touch (2011). Courtesy of Perrotin. Photo: Anders Sune Berg.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Elmgreen & Dragset, Statue of Liberty, Fig. 2 (2021). Installation view, 14th Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation, Museum Würth 2, Künzelsau, Germany, 2021. Photo: Studio Elmgreen & Dragset.
    Exhibition view “Useless Bodies?” by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
    Elmgreen & Dragset, The Painter, Fig. 2 (2021). Photo: Elmar Vestner. Courtesy, Pace Gallery, New York.
    Elmgreen & Dragset, The Outsiders (2020). Installation view, Art Basel. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Courtesy, Pace Gallery, New York.
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    In Pictures: See Practically Every Artwork in the Highly Anticipated, Agenda-Setting 2022 Whitney Biennial

    The 80th Whitney Biennial, which opened for previews this week (and officially opens to the public on April 6) is simultaneously a wildly ambitious and a quietly reserved exhibition.
    With 63 artists and collectives, the show is an attempt to depict America as it can, may, or should exist in a moment of deep political, environmental, and social uncertainty. Titled “Quiet as It’s Kept,” the biennial is anchored by every flash of hope and dread you can imagine: the pandemic, demands for racial and economic justice, the 2020 election—you fill in the blanks.
    Amid all that, the show’s curators, David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards, opted not to make any grand statements, but instead to offer a series of suggestions and hypotheses. Probably that was the right call.
    The show, quite simply, bursts with ideas and provocations both gentle and pointed. So to help you take it all in (or to jog your memory), we’ve put together an extensive collection of images from the show.

    Exterior
    A piece in Rayyane Tabet, 100 Civics Questions (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Lobby
    Renée Green, Space Poem #7 (Color Without Objects: Intra-Active May Words) (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    3rd Floor
    Installation dedicated to Cassandra Press. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Installation dedicated to Cassandra Press. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Two of the readers displayed by Cassandra Press. Photo by Ben Davis.
    4th Floor
    Charles Ray, Burger (2021) and Jeff (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    A visitor interacts with Alejandro “Luperca” Morales’s  Juárez Archive (2020–ongoing). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Lucy Raven, Demolition of a Wall (Album 1) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Guadalupe Rosales, Kennedy Hall (2022) and 6th Street #2 (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Danielle Dean, Long Low Line (Fordland) (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Buck Ellison, The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday, Steyr-Mannlicher Luxus in .027 Winchester, See Statement 11, New Nanny 2003 (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Ralph Lemon, a selection from an as-yet untitled series (2020–22). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Eric Wesley, North American Buff Tit (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Andrew Roberts, CARGO: A certain doom (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Andrew Roberts, La horda (The horde) (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Paintings by Jane Dickson. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Sable Elyse Smith, LAUGH TRACK, OR WHO’S THAT PEEKING IN MY WINDOW (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Adam Gordon, She throws children into the world (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Emily Barker, Death by 7,865 Paper Cuts (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Harold Ancart, The Guiding Light (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Jacky Connolly, Descent Into Hell (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Woody de Othello, The will to make things happen (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Alex Da Corte, ROY G BIV (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Leidy Churchman, Mountains Walking (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works from Lisa Alvarado’s “Vibratory Cartography” series. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Rindon Johnson. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Matt Connors, One Wants to Insist Very Strongly (2020), Occult Glossary (2022), I / Fell / Off (after M.S.) (2021), First Fixed (2021), and How I Made Certain of My Paintings (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Yto Barrada, A Day Is a Day (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Duane Linklater. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Rock Lowe, Project Row Houses: If Artists Are Creative Why Can’t They Create Solutions? (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Pao Houa Her, from the series “After the Fall of Hmong Teb Chaw” (2017). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Renée Green, Lesson (1989). Photo by Ben Davis.
    James Little, Borrowed Times (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Dyani White Hawk, Wopila | Lineage (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mónica Arreola, Untitled, from the series “Valle San Pedro” (2018). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Documentation of the creator of Awilda Sterling-Duprey, …blindfolded (2020–ongoing). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Awilda Sterling-Duprey, …blindfolded (2020–ongoing). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Veronica Ryan. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Installation paying tribute to the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1980).
    Work by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.
    Jason Rhoades, Sutter’s Mill (2000) and Aria Dean, Little Island/Gut Punch (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Rayyane Tabet, Learning English (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Stairs
    One piece in Rayyane Tabet, 100 Civics Questions (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    5th Floor
    Video installation by Tony Cokes. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Denyse Thomasos, Displaced Burial/Burial at Gorée (1993). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Michael E. Smith, Untitled (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Guadelupe Rosales and [foreground] Rebecca Belmore, iskode (fire) (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Cy Gavin, Untitled (Snag) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Trinh T. Minh-ha, What About China? (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Dave McKenzie, Listed under Accessories (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Image from Raven Chacon, Three Songs (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Unattributed, Thomas Edison’s Last Breath (1931). Photo by Ben Davis.
    James Little, Stars and Stripes (2021), Big Shot (2021), and Exceptional Blacks (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Coco Fusco, Your Eyes Will Be an Empty Word (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    N.H. Pritchard, Pages from Mundus: A Novel (1970). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Image from Alfredo Jaar, 06.01.2020 18.39 (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Daniel Joseph Martinez, Three Critiques… (n.d.). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Kandis Williams, Death of A (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    WangShui, Titration Print (Isle of Vitr:.ous) (2022) and Hyaline Seed (Isle of Vitr:.ous) (2022), and [on the ceiling] Scr:.pe II (Isle of Vitr:.ous) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Na Mira, Night Vision (red as never been) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Jonathan Berger, An Introduction to Nameless Love (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.

    Installation dedicated to A Gathering of the Tribes/Steve Cannon. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Ivy Kwan Arce and Julie Tolentino, Echo Position (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Alia Farid, Chibayish (2022) installed on the deck at the Whitney Museum. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Alia Farid, Palm Orchard (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
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    “Weightless” Screenprint and NFT Release by Myneandyours

    Street artist Marwan Shakarchi aka Myneandyours have just released a new screenprint entitled “Weightless”. It is a beautiful 9 colour screen print on 310gsm Somerset Satin hand deckled paper. The artist is also offering the animated NFT completely free if you buy from the yellow edition of the print.Myneandyours is  also offering a real special alternative red colourway of the artwork as a 1/1 animated NFT. It will be auctioned to the highest bidder who will also receive the 1/1 physical screen print.  Check out below for more details of the release.9 Colour Screen Print310gsm Somerset Satin Paper90cm x 70cm, Hand DeckledEmbossed Signed, NumberedCertificate of AuthenticityEdition of 50, $500 USD10 AP’s (Enquire for availability).FREE NFT – together with “Weightless” Yellow Edition.Once payment is made, you will receive an email from me requesting your Metamask wallet address. Your NFT will be minted on the Ethereum blockchain and will be sent to your wallet. You will be responsible for any gas fees. You will be able to mint your Myneandyours NFT anytime within 14 days after the purchase of the screen print. It will not be available past this date.As an owner of a Myneandyours NFT you will be given access to future releases prior to public sale. You will be added to our database and will be contacted prior to future releases.NFT Details 2500px x 3056px NFT edition size is no more than 60.Visit his website for more information on the drop. More

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    How Curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards Tackled the 2022 Whitney Biennial to Show ‘What America Really Looks Like’

    Much has transpired since 2019 when Whitney curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards were announced as the next organizers of the institution’s flagship biennial: a pandemic, a presidential election, a wave of protests. Even the date of the always-anticipated exhibition changed, moving from 2021 to April of this year. 
    Tasked, as all Whitney Biennial curators are, with staging a show that reflects the times into which it’s born, Breslin and Edwards found themselves in a difficult position. They had to track down art that captured the spirit of those world-altering events without trivializing or exploiting them—and do a lot of that work over Zoom.
    With that kind of brief, it’s unsurprising that the biennial almost always produces controversy. 
    For their turn in the hot seat, Breslin and Edwards took an open-ended approach that may successfully turn down the collective temperature. They opted to ask questions instead of offering declarations, to create a space for contemplation, and to look beyond the borders of America for a portrait of the country.
    Ahead of the opening of the exhibition, “Quiet as It’s Kept,” Breslin and Edwards spoke to Artnet News about the curatorial experience and what viewers can expect.
    Alfredo Jaar, still from 06.01.2020 18.39 (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong & Co.
    The idea of designing an exhibition to reflect the art of our times is daunting at the best of times, but the last three years have not been the best of times, and much has changed since 2019 when you two were announced as curators of the biennial. Does that distinguish this biennial from others in your mind?
    David Breslin: Well one amazingly consistent thing was working together with Adrienne. Because I do think that in the best of times, these are hard shows to do and, as you say, these have not been the best of times. To have someone that you trust, respect, and admire, someone you have absolute faith in, is really important. 
    To the other point, I would say that, for every person who does a biennial, whether they’re at the Whitney or elsewhere, the sands are always shifting; the times and the ways in which artists are reacting to them are constantly changing. I think the degree of change in such a brief period of time is something that Adrienne and I had to reckon with in a way that felt really alive to the moment. But we also didn’t want to claim or sensationalize any particular part of it. We were thinking about how the exhibition can reflect the complicated layers of emotion that we’ve all felt.
    Adrienne Edwards: One of the things that really rocked me was when we got on the museum floor before artwork started coming in. It was just this clearing; it was completely open and there was nothing there. In some ways it felt deeply metaphorical and emblematic of what we needed and had hoped for. David and I felt it was important to put together this show, wanted to contextualize artists in relationship—all the stuff you can read in the essay and the press release. But what was really moving was realizing what it meant to stand there and see all of these radical juxtapositions, all of these incredible things—and not just side to side, as we’re accustomed to seeing them, but how you could get a sidelong glance that takes you across 15,000 square feet and see a relationality there. That really opened things up in a way that reinforced that we were onto something when we set out to make a show that was about the conditions in which we were living.
    Adam Pendleton, still from Ruby Nell Sales (2020–22). Courtesy of the artist.
    How has your approach to the show evolved since 2019?
    DB: From about November 2019 to mid-March, when we were told that the museum was shutting down for what was then thought to be a brief moment, we were on the road. It was a traveling moment. It was about going into studios, getting on planes, seeing people from afar, roaming around New York, seeing people that were closer by. But even before that, Adrienne and I had a lot of time to just sit together with artists names or images we wanted to share with each other or books or essays or articles that proved to be formative. Then, in mid-March, everything shifted and, like that, we were on Zoom.
    Adrienne and I had to develop a different kind of relationship with each other too. When you’re in the same space, you take for granted that you can just meet up and have a chat. It suddenly had to be very deliberate. But I was surprised by how much more intimacy that allowed for. All the texts that we have, the photos that we’ve sent back and forth, even images of pages from books that we were reading—I still remember that as being a really grounding thing when we were pretty much by ourselves or with our families in that moment.
    The phrase that forms the name of the show, “Quiet as It’s Kept,” opens Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eye.” It was also the name of an album by bebop drummer Max Roach and an exhibition curated by David Hammons. What does it mean to you?
    AE: It’s a kind of vernacular that I would hear from my grandmother and women of her generation. It’s this very kind of tongue-in-cheek thing like, ‘I’m going to tell you something you already know, but you never talk about.’ [Laughs] It just worked for us. So did the fact that those sources are interdisciplinary references, because that’s such an important part of the show. Trying to speak to identity or a sense of belonging or history or social formation—those are all things that David and I were thinking about very deeply. So it just seemed to be the perfect title.
    Coco Fusco, still from Your Eyes Will Be an Empty Word (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates.
    You’ve used somewhat soft language to describe the show—language that suggests rather than states. You’ve called the exhibition “speculative” and an “experiment,” described the subthemes as “hunches,” and the group of artists as an “ensemble.” Fair or not, we tend to associate the Whitney Biennial as a kind of declarative, flag-in-the-ground kind of exhibition—and because of that, it almost always proves to be alienating to some people. I wonder, with this new language, are you trying to get away from that understanding and move toward something more nuanced and contemplative?
    AE: I would say it’s necessarily contemplative, given the times in which it’s been made. How can you have any sense of certainty about anything really? It would seem absurd.
    That clearing on the fifth floor that I mentioned before, it’s really about leveling and holding space, it’s about the importance of everyone being able to ask questions, to show up with our own experiences and have those brought to the fore.
    This whole idea that any singular exhibition could be declarative is already deeply problematic and, at the Whitney, there’s a kind of institutional openness and clarity about that impossibility. Because institutions are changing too. These institutions are comprised of people, so every time you have a different cast of characters here, you’re going to get a different kind of show. What the Whitney Biennial was 20 years ago, what it was 30 years ago—it’s really different from what the Whitney Biennial is now. And you know what? That feels really right and honest and generative.
    DB: I think we find that there’s real strength in speculation. Instead of leading with our own kind of declarations of what it should be, we wanted to situate the show as an encounter with different ways of imagining a world. Some exhibitions revolve around this question of, “Well what power does art have to change the world?” They have these very grandiose ideas. In no way are we thinking that it can’t, but we believe art has a way of impacting and changing people, how people think and respond. And then people have a way of changing the world or reacting to it. There’s never going to be any singular story that a show like this can narrate. So it became a question of how we might be able to create an ensemble where there are multiple narratives that can bleed in and out of each other. 
    N. H. Pritchard, Red Abstract / fragment (1968–69).
    Accompanying the exhibition’s wall texts and other materials is a symbol that comes from the avant-garde poet N. H. Pritchard. It’s a set of inverted parentheses: ) (.  What does that motif mean to you? 
    AE: Pritchard is an artist that I’ve come to know in my relationship with [Whitney Biennial artist] Adam Pendleton, who also has reprinted some of his work. The symbol seemed so iconic to David and I, the profound openness it suggests. I think about it as an interval, a space between two marks. It’s so emblematic of where we are in this moment, this in-between space, ready to get on with it. Also, the fact that it was done in ’68, another troubling and complicated year, and still resonates across time is incredible.
    Prichard as a figure was so interesting. He traversed these really different worlds and always seemed to be a little too eccentric for both of them in some ways. What we were able to see in the estate was his poetry, but with a visual lexicon added to it. There are these really dazzling, colorful drawings overlaying the language itself. Pritchard’s poetry is very compelling, but it’s not closed in terms of its symbolism or signification. It’s actually profoundly open. Those are all things that Dave and I had been saying we wanted to put into this exhibition.
    DB: Adrienne, I still remember when you and I met with Ian Russell, Pritchard’s nephew. We were looking at some drawings and poems—I think it was in August of last year. There were so many times we just looked at each other and we didn’t have to say anything, we just kind of knew. It was one of those great moments that come with working with someone for a long time. When we saw that symbol, our eyes met and we thought, ‘All right, we’re going to do something with this one.’ [Laughs] You will see it on the side of the introductory texts. It’s incorporated there as a nod to this other way of looking and seeing.
    Your biennial includes artists outside of the U.S.—specifically from Canada and Mexico—which is not new for the Whitney Biennial, but might nevertheless confuse some who are expecting a survey of American art.
    DB: It was very important for us to think about “The Whitney Museum of American Art” and the fact that that can mean so much for so many different people. Obviously, people who visit aren’t just from the United States, and the work that people make within the United States has ramifications everywhere in the world. That’s something Adrienne and I took very seriously in putting on this exhibition, that there is a kind of push and pull relationship between the United States and the countries closest to us. The artists who are working on the border of Tijuana aren’t just being shown on their own. They’re incorporated within a flow of other artists and works that touch on similar themes about, say, how pop culture is defined or minimalism is thought about. We wanted to make an exhibition that looks like what America really looks like, which is a country of immigrants, a country of pressure along the border.
    Denyse Thomasos, Displaced Burial / Burial at Gorée (1993). Courtesy of the Estate of Denyse Thomasos and Olga Korper Gallery.
    There’s a tonal dichotomy between the show’s top floors—one light and open, the other dark and labyrinthine. What is the relationship between these two sections?
    AE: The sixth floor is a labyrinth. There is, almost in a Borgesian kind of way, an unfolding of different kinds of spaces and rooms. Unlike the fifth floor, your experience is far more directed. You’re directed through this antechamber and then you can come out of that and you can go left or right, you can go forward. So there are these undulating, changing experiences there. That floor has a lot of moving image work, which is often presented out in the open because we have literally transformed the floor into a black box itself. It really feels like a void; it has a force to it. Then, on either end, there are these works that are deeply about light.
    So as intense as I think it’s shaping up to be on the top floor, it’s actually optimistic. It tries to embody the possibility of something else. I think of that floor as characterizing both a sense of history and also this contemporary moment, the last two-plus years of life in the United States. Deeply encapsulated in that space are our issues, our hopes, our disappointments. But there’s a way out if we choose to take it.
    “Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept” will be on view April 6 through September 5, 2022 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
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    New Murals by C215 in support to Ukraine

    French street artist C215 have recently worked on a series of murals that serve as reminders of the human cost of the war in Ukraine.C215’s works are also testament to the talents of a man whose graffiti skills helped him overcome a traumatic youth to become one of France’s leading street artists — a one-time Banksy collaborator who has tagged walls all over the world. Real name Christian Guemy, the 49-year-old unveiled the huge new portrait of the Ukrainian girl last week in the 13th arrondissement of Paris.It carries a quote from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said to his staff when he was elected in 2019: “I really don’t want my photos in your offices, because I am neither a god nor an icon, but rather a servant of the nation. Instead, hang pictures of your children and look at them whenever you want to make a decision.”“It’s a universal message of support,” Guemy told AFP at his studio. “It challenges us to think about the ongoing humanitarian drama in Ukraine and the responsibility of politicians to do something. I can’t ignore the incursions of big politics into people’s daily lives.”Take a look below for more murals created by C215 in war-stricken places of Ukraine.A mural in Zhytomyr, an Ukrainian City near Belarus where rockets have fallen. “I did paint children faces in a building fully destroyed by Russian bombs. It has been painful but important to see the reality of the situation there” said the artist.A mural of portrait of C215’s son Gabin in Jytomyr, near Belarus, in a flat destroyed by Russian rockets. The artist worked on this thinking to himself it is in this tiny room where an Ukrainian kid had to abandon his life to escape and survive.Mural within the flats in Zhytomyr, Ukraine More

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    New Piece by My Dog Sighs in Plymouth, England

    My Dog Sighs have just worked on a new wall in Plymouth, England during his book signing tour.“One of the things I’m known for are these glassy, reflective eyes and like there’s a cliche the eyes are the window into the soul. But, you know like our thumbprint, every iris has its own unique pattern and when you look into someone’s eyes, you can see a story reflected back…So for me, it was about trying to, maybe capture a little bit of the essence of Plymouth. And I know, the Anthony Gormley sculpture on the front is controversial, bit I think if it’s getting people talking, and that’s a really good thing. So I’ve hidden that inside the reflection of the eye” the artist said during an interview with Plymouth Live.My Dog Sighs has produced an art book based on his recent installation/exhibition. The captivating, beautifully produced photo book reveals all the artwork from INSIDE:We Shelter Here Sometimes as well as a comprehensive and candid documentation of the 18 month journey of the exhibition’s creation. My Dog Sighs has continued the multi layer intriguing theme with the book, creating a game-changing publication that breaks many conventions of the accepted norms of a high end coffee table art book. It is playful and, like the exhibition, encourages discovery of hidden elements that take time to reveal themselves.My Dog Sighs said “I’m a street artist, working on the street is my passion and at the core of everything I do. When Covid forced us all inside then I, like everyone else, had to change the way I work. This unleashed a surge of creativity which I channelled into my immersive installation and this book. This lovingly produced book is as much inspired by Kit William’s Masquerade as it is by the great street art publications. More

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    The 2022 Whitney Biennial at a Glance: Here Are 3 Charts That Break Down What to Expect From the Anticipated Survey

    When the Whitney Biennial was founded in 1932, it was conceived as a bellwether survey of U.S. art from the preceding two years. That’s still loosely the idea driving the museum’s signature show, even if its mission has gotten much more fluid over the ensuing 90 years. 
    The newest iteration of the Biennial, “Quiet as It’s Kept,” is proof of this broadening. It will bring together 63 artists and collectives whose work spans generations, mediums, and—perhaps most notably—geographic borders. 
    For curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards, organizing a show with the aim of drawing conclusions about the state of art today would be an irresponsible exercise at the best of times. But in 2022—after a pandemic, a presidential election, and a spate of global protests—generalizations are simply unthinkable. Instead, the 80th Whitney Biennial reflects the precarity of our moment. 
    “Rather than proposing a unified theme, we pursue a series of hunches throughout the exhibition,” the curators explained earlier this year upon announcing the show. Among those “hunches” are “that personal narratives sifted through political, literary, and pop cultures can address larger social frameworks” and “that artworks can complicate what ‘American’ means by addressing the country’s physical and psychological boundaries.”
    © Artnet News
    For the last Biennial in 2019, Artnet News surveyed recent examples of the Whitney’s show to identify patterns among participants. With a new entry onto the list, we have a new set of observations. 
    For one, this year’s participants are a little older, on average, than those of previous years. Of the 2022 artists, 31 are under 40, while 23 fall on the other side of that line.
    Puerto Rican choreographer Awilda Sterling-Duprey, born in 1947, is the oldest of the bunch. The youngest is Mexican video artist Andrew Roberts, born in 1995. Five artists (Steve Cannon, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha N. H. Pritchard, Jason Rhoades, and Denyse Thomasos) are deceased—an uncommonly high figure for an exhibition so ostensibly tethered to the present.  
    © Artnet News
    Visitors will almost certainly discover at least some new names at the exhibition next month, if not many. Refreshingly, you’ll find just seven of the Biennial’s artists on the rosters of the country’s four biggest galleries (that is, David Zwirner, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and Pace Gallery).
    The vast majority of participants do, however, hail from coastal hubs. Twenty-three, or 36 percent of the bunch, live and work in New York (or at least divide their time between there and another city); 12, or 19 percent, call Los Angeles home. (For comparison, in 2019, 51 percent of participants came from New York, and 11 came from L.A.)
    © Artnet News
    The 2022 Biennial also skews more international than other recent editions.
    Sixteen artists, including Yto Barrada, Alfredo Jaar, and Duane Linklater, were born outside of the U.S. That accounts for a solid quarter of the participant list, a high mark last seen with the 2008 Biennial, in which more than a quarter of artists were foreign-born. That percentage decreased for each of the successive Biennials, dipping to 17 percent in 2019. 
    Eleven of this edition’s artists live and work abroad, including three in Mexico (Mónica Arreola, Alejandro “Luperca” Morales, and Roberts) and two from Canada (Rebecca Belmore and Duane Linklater). 
    “We wanted to make an exhibition that looks like what America really looks like,” Breslin told Artnet News in an interview, “which is a country of immigrants, a country of pressure along the border.”
    Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More