Art
To walk into the artist Robert Gober’s installation of paintings, photographs and writings by Forrest Bess — a visionary painter and self-described, self-surgically-altered “pseudo-hermaphrodite” — was to encounter art frontloaded with (as the reader put it) “cultural significance while also being v
Art
I left the 2012 Whitney Biennial with a feeling of leadenness that no amount of free coffee (available at Monday’s press preview, and many thanks for that) or Werner Herzog’s video ode to beauty (“Hearsay of the Soul,” 2012) could alleviate.
Art
Art lovers in attendance at last night’s conversation with Werner Herzog at the New York Public Library were fortunate enough to hear a little of the backstory behind Herzog’s participation in this year’s Whitney Biennial. The inclusion of the celebrated filmmaker in the exhibition took many art-wor
News
Tonight's Whitney Biennial VIP Party brought together two sectors of the art world that continue to butt heads in this post-Occupy Wall Street world. Chic art world partygoers were lined up on Madison Avenue waiting to drink champagne at the Sotheby's-sponsored Biennial, while a few dozen protesters
![OWS Arts & Labor Working Group Calls for End to Whitney Biennial By 2014 [UPDATED]](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/size/w600/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/02/occupy-whitney-home.jpg)
News
This week, the Whitney Biennial opens but Occupy Wall Street's Arts and Labor working group has already started to question the usefulness of the exhibition for artists and cultural workers, many of whom are unpaid to participate.
![As Whitney Biennial Approaches, Museum's Art Handlers Face Potential Labor Dispute [UPDATED]](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/size/w600/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/01/labor-issues-whitney-home.jpg)
News
First Sotheby's, and now the Whitney. While the Teamsters of Local 814 have been fighting with Sotheby's since August for a better contract, a new labor dispute has cropped up for the art handlers of Local 966 that work at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Opinion
Get out the syringe, it's time for your shot of art for the week. We promise it won't be painful. This week the medicine comes in the form of museum exhibitions both big and small, including Sherrie Levine's retrospective at the Whitney, the much anticipated opening of the Met's Islamic wing, and ro
Art
In the 1960s, Paco Rabanne subverted traditional dressmaking techniques in his fashions, eschewing the needle and thread for pliers and wire and replacing fabric with metallic discs and panels. The so-called “space age” dresses constructed solely of inflexible paillettes revolutionized how women cou
Opinion
Museums are turning more, and with more creativity, to their own permanent collections. Is necessity the mother of invention once again, or is there a real interest among museums to breathe new life into their own holdings? (Or both?) Either way, the public is reaping the benefits. Today viewers hav
Art
Remember Oakley M-Frame sunglasses? They’re supposed to look like the future, with gradient lenses in a variety of neon colors and knotted frames that bear a resemblance to tensed muscle and ligaments. What they actually look like is a future imagined from the 1980s, in which some mixture of cyberpu
Art
Tomorrow marks the opening of Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools, a full floor of new and recent work by the artist at the Whitney Museum. Lucky you, you get to see it a day early! I previewed the exhibition and came back with a photo essay featuring bowling video games, photoshop gradients, bad golfers and e
News
This week has been pretty huge for New York City's museum community. Newly announced shake-ups mean that the Metropolitan Museum will be taking over the Whitney's uptown Breuer building as the younger institution heads downtown to a new Renzo Piano-designed space. The Museum of Modern Art is buying