Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner

Nov 20, 2015–Mar 6, 2016

A photograph of a woman and a vase lying on a mirror, stylized like a fashion magazine
A photograph of a woman and a vase lying on a mirror, stylized like a fashion magazine

Bernadette Corporation, Creation of a False Feeling, 2000. Inkjet print: sheet, 70 1/2 x 49 13/16 in. (179.1 x 126.5); image, 60 11/16 x 47 1/16 in. (154.1 x 119.5) Promised gift of Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner P.2014.10 © Bernadette Corporation


Co-organized by the Whitney and the Centre Pompidou and composed of selections from the noted collection of Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, this exhibition celebrates American and international work from the 1960s to the present day. Featuring renowned pieces by, among many others, Diane Arbus, Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Christopher Wool, the exhibition will also include recent work by artists such as Liz Deschenes, Sam Lewitt, Laura Owens, Frances Stark, and Bernadette Corporation. Of the 800 works included in the gift from Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, 550 will enter the Whitney’s permanent collection, and approximately 300 will become part of the collection of the Centre Pompidou. 

Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner is organized by Elisabeth Sussman, curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Christine Macel, chief curator and head of the department of contemporary and prospective creation, Centre Pompidou, with Elisabeth Sherman, assistant curator, Whitney Museum of American Art.

The exhibition travels to the Centre Pompidou after debuting at the Whitney.

Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner is presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in collaboration with Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris.

Major Support for this exhibition is provided by the National Committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Generous support is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston.

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Audio guides

A photograph of a woman and a vase lying on a mirror, stylized like a fashion magazine
A photograph of a woman and a vase lying on a mirror, stylized like a fashion magazine

Bernadette Corporation, Creation of a False Feeling, 2000. Inkjet print: sheet, 70 1/2 x 49 13/16 in. (179.1 x 126.5); image, 60 11/16 x 47 1/16 in. (154.1 x 119.5) Promised gift of Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner P.2014.10 © Bernadette Corporation


Listen to this audio guide of selected works in the exhibition, Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, co-organized by the Whitney and the Centre Pompidou. 

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The Westreich Wagner and Wagner Collection

This exhibition includes a selection of works from the Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner Collection. To view all works in the Whitney's permanent collection gifted by Westreich Wagner and Wagner, visit the collection online.

A red-tinted screenprint of a red flag by Reena Spaulings.
A red-tinted screenprint of a red flag by Reena Spaulings.

A red-tinted screenprint of a red flag by Reena Spaulings.

Exhibition Catalogue

Published on the occasion of an exhibition celebrating Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner’s gift of nearly five hundred fifty works of art to the Whitney Museum and more than three hundred to the Centre Pompidou, Paris, this catalogue presents highlights of the extraordinary contemporary art collection the couple has accumulated over the course of more than thirty years.

The excerpt available here includes the first part of an interview with the collectors, conducted by curators Elisabeth Sussman and Christine Macel, as well as full-color plates featuring works the couple acquired in the 1980s by artists including John Dogg, Jacques Flechemuller, Robert Gober, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Zoe Leonard, Sherrie Levine, Joyce Pensato, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Christopher Wool.

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Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

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In the News

"2015 was the Year of the Whitney. . .the cross-disciplinary approach taken by America Is Hard to See and Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, is becoming the model for a new generation of curators."
—Hyperallergic

"Wagner Collection at the Whitney, Twenty-Five Years of Astute Buying"
—The New York Times

"At the Whitney, Thea and Ethan Wagner Show the Fruits of Prescient Collecting"
—The New York Times

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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