A number of attendees in the course of the 12 March press preview of the 2024 Whitney Biennial—Even Higher Than the Actual Factor (20 March-11 August), curated by Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli—remarked on how understated this version of the exhibition is, notably in contrast with the 2017 and 2019 iterations that have been rocked by controversies and protests. It’s so understated, it appears, that one in all its most pointed feedback on present occasions went largely unnoticed, together with by Iles and Onli: a large-scale neon work by the artist Demian DinéYazhi’ that sometimes sparkles with the phrases “free Palestine”.
DinéYazhi’, who’s a member of the Diné clans Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) and Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water) and relies in Portland, Oregon, premised the work on three stanzas of political poetry they composed earlier than the occasions of seven October 2023 and the Israel-Hamas battle. The neon, titled we should cease imagining apocalypse/genocide + we should think about liberation (2024), is put in dealing with a wall of home windows overlooking the West Aspect Freeway and the Hudson River. It’s typical of what artwork historian Josie Roland Hodson describes within the biennial catalogue’s entry for DinéYazhi’ as their “follow of decolonial resistance and institutional critique”.
More often than not, the work’s illuminated textual content encourages viewers and readers to cease envisioning worsening, apocalyptic circumstances and to as a substitute “pursue + predict + think about routes towards liberation!”. Seemingly sporadically, a smattering of letters throughout the three stanzas of neon textual content go darkish, earlier than the association is reversed and the one letters illuminated spell out “free Palestine”.
The fleeting political assertion was first reported by Artnet Information, and a Whitney spokesperson confirmed to The New York Occasions that the museum was unaware of it: “The museum didn’t know of this delicate element when the work was put in.” The spokesperson added: “The Biennial has lengthy been a spot the place up to date artists deal with well timed issues, and the Whitney is dedicated to being an area for artists’ conversations.”
The artist advised the Occasions the work was impressed partly by their good friend Klee Benally, a Diné activist who died in December, including: “The piece in its remaining type and because it presently exists at present is a response to being located inside settler colonial establishments.”
Artists making works that seem to handle the Israel-Hamas battle and the establishments displaying them have continuously come below strain, ensuing within the cancellation of exhibitions, residencies, public programmes and extra, usually adopted by a backlash of artists and lenders withdrawing works or institutional leaders stepping down in scandal, protest or solidarity. Many observers of the artwork world are turning their eyes to the Whitney to see what extra might transpire now that DinéYazhi’’s gesture has been revealed.
