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Open Plan: Steve McQueen

Apr 29–May 14, 2016

From February 26 through May 14, 2016, the Whitney Museum of American Art will present Open Plan, an experimental five-part exhibition using the Museum’s dramatic fifth-floor as a single open gallery, unobstructed by interior walls. The largest column-free museum exhibition space in New York, the Neil Bluhm Family Galleries measure 18,200 square feet and feature windows with striking views east into the city and west to the Hudson River, making for an expansive and inspiring canvas.

Steve McQueen (b. 1969) is a visual artist and filmmaker, whose films include Hunger, Shame, and 12 Years a Slave, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. McQueen’s project for Open Plan will center on a newly expanded version of his work End Credits, which presents documents from the FBI file kept on the legendary African-American performer Paul Robeson.

In conjunction with End Credits, McQueen will be exhibiting Moonlit (2016), a recently created sculptural work which is being shown for the first time in the U.S. Moonlit will be on view in the adjacent Kaufman Gallery during Open Plan: Steve McQueen. 

Open Plan: Steve McQueen is organized by Deputy Director for International Initiatives and Senior Curator Donna De Salvo, with curatorial assistant Christie Mitchell.

Major support for Open Plan is provided by the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation and the National Committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Significant support is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston and Donald R. Mullen, Jr.

Generous support is provided by Diane and Adam E. Max.

Additional support is provided by Alexander S. C. Rower, Joseph Rosenwald Varet and Esther Kim Varet, and the Performance Committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art.




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In the News

"Open Plan justifies the Whitney’s fifth-floor preening, demonstrating in five ways its ingenious versatility through the use of space as artistic material."
The New York Times

"The Whitney Museum of American Art has devoted its fifth floor to the London-born artist Steve McQueen, who is showing the video End Credits about the African American singer and actor Paul Robeson’s FBI files."
The Art Newspaper

"Titled End Credits, like the final roll of a movie, McQueen’s project is plaintive, compelling and exhaustive."
The Root

"The director-artist’s art show includes an expanded version of a 2012 piece, 'End Credits,' with screens scrolling declassified FBI documents on Paul Robeson, the great singer, actor and civil rights activist."
Page Six

"In End Credits, McQueen captures a more psychological form of subjugation: The droning dictation and unchanging projection speed evoke the nonstop oppression Robeson experienced in his later years."
The Village Voice

"It's the job of both artists and museums to reevaluate the past"
Apollo Magazine 


EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Andrea Fraser
February 26–March 13

Lucy Dodd
March 17–20

Michael Heizer
March 25–April 10

Cecil Taylor
April 15–24

Steve McQueen
April 29–May 14