LACMA has published an article on Frank Stella’s St. Michael’s Counterguard, a work from the museum collection currently on view at The Whitney’s Stella retrospective, documenting the challenges of transport and installation for the work.  “Yes, all the parts were there (with the exception of the original wall cleat), but could we put them together? The only way to make sure was to temporarily install the artwork ourselves at LACMA before repacking and crating it for transport to the Whitney,” writes lead conservator Mark Gilberg. (more…)

Frank Stella is the subject of a profile in The Economist this week, as the artist opens his retrospective exhibition at The Whitney Museum.  The article traces Stella’s ongoing formal inventions and investigation of the act of viewing and experiencing his work.   “What you see is what you see.” he quips. (more…)

Both the Whitney Museum and Centre Pompidou will open exhibitions devoted to transformative gifts from collectors and art advisors Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner.   “Thea and Ethan are among the most astute collectors of late twentieth century and early twenty-first-century art and their gift adds enormous strength to the Whitney’s collection. We are deeply grateful to them and are pleased to be collaborating with our friends at the Pompidou,” says Whitney President Adam Weinberg. (more…)

The Whitney has named Scott Rothkopf, the man behind last year’s Jeff Koons retrospective, as the institution’s new chief curator, taking over for Donna De Salvo as she assumes the new position of deputy director.  “Now that the institution has grown, we need more firepower at the top,” says President Adam Weinberg said, adding: “I wouldn’t say so much that it’s a generational change but it is about bringing that next generation into the curatorial and programmatic leadership.” (more…)

The Whitney Museum has launched a new program for emerging and young artists, giving them access to the spaces of the new downtown location to put on their first U.S. solo exhibitions.  The first artists selected for the project are New York-based artists Jared Madere and Rachel Rose, as well as Qatari-American writer and artist Sophia Al-Maria.   (more…)

First Lady Michelle Obama was on hand Thursday for the opening ceremonies at the Whitney Museum, which opens to the public today, and made remarks praising the vision of the new space.  “Maybe you can discover the next Carmen Herrera, or Archibald Motley, or Edward Hopper, or maybe even the next Barack Obama. That is the power of institutions like the Whitney. They open their doors as wide as possible both to the artists they embrace and to the young people they seek to uplift.” (more…)

Part of the celebrations surrounding the opening of the Whitney Museum this week, the Empire State building will display colored lighting schemes centered around famous works from the museum collection.  The lighting, which goes live Saturday, is designed by acclaimed designer Mark Brickman.  “We’re dealing with Andy Warhol and Elizabeth Murray and Rothko,” Brickman says of the challenge. “Giants.” (more…)

Outside the New Whitney Museum, via Art Observed

When the Whitney’s migration downtown was first announced, the anxiety and anticipation over its move away from the Breuer building on 75th and Madison was palpable, to say the least.  But as the initial reviews of the space begin to trickle in, the move downtown seems to have made all of the difference for one of the bastions of American fine arts.  Sure enough, the museum, which opens its Renzo Piano-designed doors to the public on May 1st, has created the conditions for something truly incredible in the Meatpacking District, an effortless, flowing viewing experience that manages to tie the museum’s impressive holdings together with the skylines and scenic views of its iconic hometown.

John Storr, via Art Observed (more…)

The completed Whitney Museum is set to open in a matter of days, and articles in both New York Magazine and the New Yorker are already praising the space for its massive exhibition spaces and intriguing design by architect Renzo Piano.  “The audacity of the building shows that, yes, the Whitney will survive the new era,” writes Jerry Saltz.  “But the better question is whether it has found a way to thrive in it. And, believe it or not, I am in love with what this building represents.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper reviews the Whitney’s soon to open, Renzo Piano-designed space in the Meatpacking District, reviewing its tripled floor space and focus on every aspect of the museum’s presentation.  “We conceptualized [the building] as a total work of art,” says Donna de Salvo, the museum’s chief curator.  (more…)

Jeff Koons spoke with talk show host Charlie Rose for almost an hour about art, culture, and his pursuit of happiness. The conversation, which was broadcasted by PBS on July 28th, opened with a discussion of the large retrospective of his work currently on at the Whitney, an exhibition that Koons said has prompted him to feel “more ambitious”. Other topics included the artists who inspire Koons, including Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Salvador Dali, his creative process, and his future plans. A recurring theme was Koons’ desire to continue to do what he loves and explore “the freedom that we have for gesture”. (more…)

The New York Times has published a by-the-numbers review of the recently opened Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney, charting the show’s contents in figures and facts, like the heaviest work (Gorilla, which weights 15,000 pounds), the number of gallons of water in his Equilibrium series (117 and 1/2), and the number of shipments to deliver all of the works (75). (more…)

The New York Times traces the prominent presence of transgender narratives in the Whitney Biennial this year, using the thread to examine a broader presence of trans people in the pop culture landscape.  The article comes on the heels of the Biennial’s opening, and the presentation of Relationships, a piece by artists and romantic partners Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker that traces their respective gender transitions. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on musician and artist Charlemagne Palestine’s special sound installation in the stairwell of the Whitney Museum for this year’s Biennial.  Featuring a set of speakers ascending the museum staircase, covered in stuffed animals and fabric, the work plays off the reverberant nature of Eli Breuer’s concrete architecture.  “I’ve been coming to the museum since it was built, and I’ve always loved the staircase,” says Palestine. “This particular kind of concrete has a fantastic resonance. It’s Taj Mahal-esque.” (more…)

Bjarne Melgaarde, via Art Observed

Plurality suits the Whitney Biennial.  It’s long embraced the diffuse narratives and varied identities of a nation as broad and intricate as the United States, and this year is no different, with 103 participants (both artists and several collectives) from around the country.  But the 2014 event, and the last to take place in the Whitney’s Marcel Breuer-designed space on Madison and 75th, has taken this interest in the varied artistic practices and themes dominating the American contemporary, and opened it to even wider dialogues, welcoming three separate curators (Michelle Grabner, Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer) with varying backgrounds to each select one floor of the museum, and explore their own particular concerns.  The result is a set of three almost completely separate thematic projects, each of which leaves itself open to dialogue with the floors nearby.

Works by John Mason, via Art Observed (more…)

ArtNews has published a profile on Michelle Grabner, the sculptor and curator tapped to curate this year’s Whitney Biennial.  “One of the interesting things about including an artist is that they really understand process from within, and I think that affects how Michelle approaches the works of art she selects and the exhibition itself,” says Whitney chief curator Donna De Salvo. “She has been a curator at a pioneering gallery, but also she is incredibly well published and has engagement with artists across the country. A mix of all those aspects were needed for participation in the Biennial.” (more…)

The New York Times has a published a preview piece on next week’s opening for the Whitney Biennial, which will open concurrently with Armory Week next Friday.  The 77th edition of the event will be the last in the Whitney’s current home before it moves to its new location in the Meatpacking District, and features the collaborative vision of three separate curators, each of which are occupying a single floor of the museum.  “It’s as if you’re on your laptop and have three windows open,” said Stuart Comer, one of the curators and the head of media and performance at MoMA. “It’s not a collaboration but a conversation, a dialogue.” (more…)

Jill Kroesen, The Original Lou and Walter Story, performance at The Kitchen, December 21—23, 1978. Courtesy the artist. Photograph by Robert Alexander

Currently on view at The Whitney Museum of American Art is Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama — Manhattan, 1970-1980, an ambitiously titled exhibition that focuses on the underground performance art circuits that made New York City a founding ground for the medium.  Looking at a broad range of performers, exhibition spaces, practices and historical contexts, the exhibition is an intriguing look at the early days of performance, and its impacts on contemporary art. (more…)

The upcoming Whitney Biennial, opening next March, has announced its initial list of artists for the 2 month exhibition.  Featuring work by Triple Canopy, Uri Aran, Bjarne Melgaard, Charlemagne Palestine and more, the 2014 edition of the Biennial will be the final in the museum’s current building before moving to the Meatpacking district in 2015. (more…)

Robert Indiana, The American Gas Works (1962), Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art

Robert Indiana‘s lasting fame in the canon of American post-war modernism will forever belong to his iconic LOVE sculpture—that immediately recognizable logo of stacked letters animated by it’s slanting O, which graces merchandise as ubiquitous as the US postage stamp. This beautifully simple graphic, originally conceived as a design for a Christmas Card for MoMA, has in fact so eclipsed Indiana’s expansive career that his name has become synonymous with its text. And yet this fall’s large retrospective at the Whitney, Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, plumbs the depths of his oeuvre to present an artist far more complex than those four well-worn letters. Curated by Barbara Haskell, the exhibit presents paintings and sculptures by the pop artist that highlight Indiana’s sociopolitical conscience as boldly as their hard-edged execution, and traces his developing formal vocabulary of language and abstraction, from biting political commentary, to personal biography, to literary allusion, Indian’s broad selection of works on view dispel any notion of the artist as one-hit-wonder.  This exhibit demonstrates the thematic expanse Indiana pursues “beyond Love”, including American identity, the American Dream, and the politics of race and sexuality. Rife with literary references to American authors and indebted to artistic predecessors such as Charles Demuth, the textual program is often as radical as his post-painterly abstraction.

Robert Indiana, LOVE (1961), Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art (more…)

David Hockney, The Jugglers, June 24th 2012 (detail), (2012), © David Hockney, Via Hockney Pictures and Pace Gallery

The Jugglers, June 24th 2012 (2012), the U.S. premiere of artist David Hockney’s first video installation, presents a panorama of bright color and whirling objects, tinged with mordant humor. In a darkened room on the second floor of the Whitney, the viewer will find a bare theater with a single long bench and eighteen screens arranged in a grid. The screens switch on to reveal a composition of red and blue horizontal blocks almost as flat as Hockney’s early acrylics. Also bearing similarities to his Polaroid collages, Hockney has chosen to create a fractured composition using video to achieve the same effect by combining feeds from eighteen different cameras mounted in his Yorkshire studio on a sunny day. The light is even and saturates the space, permitting no highlights or shadows, and without figures, the red and blue studio looks relatively seamless on the screen. (more…)

Renzo Piano, Model for New Whitney Museum (Installation View), via Alex Cosio for Art Observed

The Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, in collaboration with Fondazione Renzo Piano, is currently exhibiting a retrospective of work produced by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the architecture firm conceived and headed by Pritzker Prize laureate Renzo Piano. Piano, who was born into a family of contractors in Genoa, has emphasized the importance of hands-on experimentation as well as technological innovation throughout his career.  Particularly of note are Piano’s models and sketches regarding the design and construction of the Whitney Museum’s future home, tucked between the High Line and Hudson River in the Meatpacking District. (more…)

Robert Irwin, Black Rectangle – Scrim Veil – Natural Light (1977), via The Whitney

The immediate effect upon entering Robert Irwin’s full-room installation at The Whitney Museum is one of disorientation.  A single black runs along the outskirts of the room, interrupted by the enormous window at one end of the space.  Through the middle of the room runs an even larger black line, seemingly suspended in mid-air.  The eye swims around this phenomenon, unsure of the depth of the room, or the origin of the line until one notices the large veil bisecting the room, leaving about 6 feet of clearance for viewers to walk under.

Robert Irwin sets up his installation at the Whitney in 1977, via New York Times (more…)

The Whitney’s new building, scheduled to be finished in 2015, was affected by hurricane Sandy’s floods last year, forcing “significative adjustments.” Located at the intersection of Gansevoort and Washington Streets, the building is just one block away from the river, raising concerns about the possibility of future floods. As a preventive measure, the Whitney has committed to bring top-specialists to remodel the walls, lobby, and basement, to make them waterproof. In consequence, the museum has also increased its capital goal by $40 million to a total expense of $760 million. In this regard, Adam D. Weinberg–the Whitney’s director–says that “77 percent of the total [has] been raised. About half of the additional funds will pay for flood mitigation, […] the other half will cover unexpected costs.” (more…)