Whitney Biennial 2022: 
Quiet as It’s Kept

Apr 6–Oct 16, 2022

The Whitney Biennial has surveyed the landscape of American art, reflecting and shaping the cultural conversation, since 1932. The eightieth edition of the landmark exhibition is co-curated by David Breslin, DeMartini Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, and Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs. Titled Quiet as It’s Kept, the 2022 Biennial features an intergenerational and interdisciplinary group of sixty-three artists and collectives whose dynamic works reflect the challenges, complexities, and possibilities of the American experience today.

Read more about the exhibition in a statement by the curators.

View performance series.

En Español

Desde 1932, la Bienal del Whitney ha examinado el panorama del arte estadounidense, reflejando y dando forma a la conversación cultural. La octogésima edición de esta emblemática exhibición está co-curada por David Breslin y Adrienne Edwards. La Bienal 2022 titulada: Quiet as It's Kept (Aunque nadie diga nada), presenta un grupo intergeneracional e interdisciplinario de sesenta y tres artistas y colectivos, cuyas dinámicas obras reflejan los retos, complejidades y posibilidades de la experiencia americana actual.

Nos complace ofrecer los siguientes recursos y programas en español para la Bienal 2022: una guía portátil, traducciones de todos los videos relacionados a la exposición, visitas guiadas gratuitas de la exposición, y visitas guiadas gratuitas para las escuelas públicas de la ciudad de Nueva York. Todos los textos descriptivos de la exposición estarán en inglés y español en el Museo.

Artists

An abstract body of multicolored shapes that resemble flames against a black background.

1

Lisa Alvarado

Born 1982 in San Antonio, TX
Lives in Chicago, IL
A blue-green night sky reflecting a white moon on a vast blue-green body of water with three yellow lights in the distance to the left, also reflecting on the water.

2

Harold Ancart

Born 1980 in Brussels, Belgium
Lives in New York, NY
Photograph of a blank, white billboard with some graffiti in its upper left corner, set in a desert landscape with a gray sky and mountains in the background.

3

Mónica Arreola

Born 1976 in Tijuana, Mexico
Lives in Tijuana, Mexico
An arrangement of plastic constructs made to look like kitchen cabinets.

4

Emily Barker

Born 1992 in San Diego, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Panels of colorful, painted metal siding, some of which are damaged and peeling.

5

Yto Barrada

Born 1971 in Paris, France
Lives in Brooklyn, NY, and Tangier, Morocco
An erected, stick-club shaped object in the center with many bullets scattered outwards

6

Rebecca Belmore

Born 1960 in Upsala, Canada
Lives in Vancouver, Canada
Anishinaabe
Many large transparent panels with metal, glowing text on top of them, as if floating in air

7

Jonathan Berger

Born 1980 in New York, NY
Lives in New York, NY, and Glover, VT
A red set of doors against a black backdrop, with white arrows and the words "Private Club 835".

8

Nayland Blake

Born 1960 in New York, NY
Lives in Brooklyn and Queens, NY
Many books with white covers displayed on white shelves

9

Cassandra Press

Founded 2016 by Kandis Williams
Black-and-white image of a female face, staring directly at the camera with her lips slightly parted.

10

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Born 1951 in Busan, South Korea
Died 1982 in New York, NY
A woman stands with her mouth open as though singing, while holding a drum and drumstick.

11

Raven Chacon

Born 1977 in Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation
Lives in Albuquerque, NM
Diné
A triptych abstract landscape painting with washed-out colors and fluid lines.

12

Leidy Churchman

Born 1979 in Villanova, PA
Lives in New York, NY, and West Tremont, ME
Pink text reading "I CN'T BRTH" on a yellow background.

13

Tony Cokes

Born 1956 in Richmond, VA
Lives in Providence, RI
A figure wearing a backpack walking away down an empty, multi-lane, urban road with buildings and mountains in the background. The warm-toned light and dark sky suggests sunrise or sunset.

14

Jacky Connolly

Born 1990 in New York, NY
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
An abstract painting with colorful shapes and fluid lines.

15

Matt Connors

Born 1973 in Chicago, IL
Lives in New York, NY, and Los Angeles, CA
Image of a sculpture gallery projected against a large, red cube.

16

Alex Da Corte

Born 1980 in Camden, NJ
Lives in Philadelphia, PA
A crushed metal-like object with a ball attached to the midsection.

17

Aria Dean

Born 1993 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in New York, NY
A series of pink columns, interspersed with leafless trees, against a smoky, bluish-gray background. Some of the columns appear to have been tapped for sap as though they were trees. A spider and a fly have lighted on two of the columns.

18

Danielle Dean

Born 1982 in Huntsville, AL
Lives in Los Angeles and San Diego, CA
Green-and-yellow geometric canvas with the words "Save Time" in bright red letters on a sign in the top center of the composition.

19

Jane Dickson

Born 1952 in Chicago, IL
Lives in New York, NY
A smiling, shirtless, blonde man glances sideways out of the frame while standing in front of a wood-paneled office space that is cluttered with a bulletin board, pinned and framed photographs, a wall-mounted phone, sticky notes, and various office supplies.

20

Buck Ellison

Born 1987 in San Francisco, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
An outdoor installation of several tree-like objects with radiating straight thin sticks on top of of each.

21

Alia Farid

Born 1985 in Kuwait City, Kuwait
Lives in San Juan, PR, and Kuwait City, Kuwait
A small, white rowboat in the middle of an expansive, gray-blue body of water.

22

Coco Fusco

Born 1960 in New York, NY
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Several white, two-dimensional, human-like figures placed on a backdrop of earth tone rectangles.

23

Ellen Gallagher

Born 1965 in Providence, RI
Lives in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Brooklyn, NY
A space where a couch faces three televisions and a lot of paper is stuck to the wall.

24

A Gathering of the Tribes / Steve Cannon

Founded 1991
Steve Cannon: Born 1935 in New Orleans, LA
Died 2019 in New York, NY
An abstract painting with visible brushstrokes

25

Cy Gavin

Born 1985 in Pittsburgh, PA
Lives in New York State
A large painting of the interior of a room with a couch and disco ball.

26

Adam Gordon

Born 1986 in Minneapolis, MN
Lives in Jersey City, NJ
Colorful banners with lines of text on them, suspended from a ceiling.

27

Renée Green

Born 1959 in Cleveland, OH
Lives in Somerville, MA, and New York, NY
Sprigs of bamboo in a small glass vase, set against a bright red background.

28

Pao Houa Her

Born 1982 in Laos
Lives in Blaine, MN
A square of pale pink

29

EJ Hill

Born 1985 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Black-and-white image of protesters holding up signs (one of which reads "Black Lives Matter. There is no debate.") facing off against a line of police officers wearing riot gear.

30

Alfredo Jaar

Born 1956 in Santiago, Chile
Lives in New York, NY
Abstract splotches of brown hues on wrinkled leather.

31

Rindon Johnson

Born 1990 on the unceded territories of the Ohlone people (San Francisco, CA)
Lives in Berlin, Germany
A collage-style poster with various picture-based and wavy graphic elements overlapping against a white background.

32

Ivy Kwan Arce and Julie Tolentino

Ivy Kwan Arce: Born 1965 in Salinas, CA
Lives in New York, NY
Julie Tolentino: Born 1964 in San Francisco, CA
Lives in Joshua Tree, CA
An abstract painting comprised of multicolored shapes.

33

Ralph Lemon

Born 1952 in Cincinnati, OH
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Fabrics hung from the ceiling or on poles

34

Duane Linklater

Born 1976 in Treaty 9 Territory (Northern Ontario, Canada)
Lives in North Bay, Canada (Robinson Huron Treaty Territory)
Omaskêko Ininiwak
A collection of multicolored circles against a white background.

35

James Little

Born 1952 in Memphis, TN
Lives in New York, NY
White-on-black representation of a dense urban map of housing plots on a grid.

36

Rick Lowe

Born 1961 in rural Alabama
Lives in Houston, TX
A shirtless, bald, muscular, humanoid figure with black eyes and a disfigured, marled mouth, with blue veins showing through the skin.

37

Daniel Joseph Martinez

Born 1957 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA, and Paris, France
A person in a room is lying face-up on the floor with limbs akimbo and beneath a pane of glass.

38

Dave McKenzie

Born 1977 in Kingston, Jamaica
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Colorfully painted cylinder running through the shaft of a stairwell

39

Rodney McMillian

Born 1969 in Columbia, SC
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Pink-tinted image of three parked cars, with three people dancing in the back of a pickup truck. The time stamp in the bottom right corner reads "2017/01/23 08:54:45".

40

Na Mira

Born 1982 in Lawrence, KS, on Kickapoo, Osage, Kansa, and Sioux lands
Lives in Los Angeles, CA, on Tongva, Gabrielino, Kizh, and Chumash lands
Small, multicolored magnifying keychains, arranged in a straight line against a gray background.

41

Alejandro “Luperca” Morales

Born 1990 in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Lives in Monterrey, Mexico
An eye of a whale

42

Moved by the Motion

Founded 2016 by Wu Tsang and Tosh Basco
Blurry image of a person seen from a low angle, dressed in dark clothing and set against a dark blue background.

43

Terence Nance

Born 1982 in Dallas, TX
Lives in America
A group of ceramic sculptures arranged in a cluster and elevated on a tiled plinth.

44

Woody De Othello

Born 1991 in Miami, FL
Lives in Oakland, CA
A black and white image of a Black woman's hand resting on her chest. She wears white long-sleeved shirt.

45

Adam Pendleton

Born 1984 in Richmond, VA
Lives in New York, NY
Red-colored paper with typewritten text, entitled "Bridge", marked up, annotated, and with the margins filled with doodles.

46

N. H. Pritchard

Born 1939 in New York, NY
Died 1996 in eastern Pennsylvania
A desert landscape with a blue sky, mountains in the background, and a prominent shadow cast across the foreground.

47

Lucy Raven

Born 1977 in Tucson, AZ
Lives in New York, NY
Steel sculpture of a man with crossed legs sitting on a rectangular block

48

Charles Ray

Born 1953 in Chicago, IL
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Two architectural-looking sculptures, one smaller and made of wood, the other larger and made of metal, in a gallery before a wall of opaque windows.

49

Jason Rhoades

Born 1965 in Newcastle, CA
Died 2006 in Los Angeles, CA
A mounted, disembodied and bloody forearm, with the Amazon logo tattooed on the skin.

50

Andrew Roberts

Born 1995 in Tijuana, Mexico
Lives in Mexico City and Tijuana, Mexico
Nighttime image of a grassy yard with two trees and a graffiti-covered wall.

51

Guadalupe Rosales

Born 1980 in Redwood City, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
An installation view of an artwork consisting of colorful, indiscernible materials and objects presented on a wire shelving unit and hanging from the wall.

52

Veronica Ryan

Born 1956 in Plymouth, Montserrat
Lives in London, United Kingdom, and New York, NY
Many different kinds of coins and small, flat, round-shaped objects.

53

Rose Salane

Born 1992 in New York, NY
Lives in Queens, NY
Mustard fabric-like texture with wrinkles on it.

54

Michael E. Smith

Born 1977 in Detroit, MI
Lives in Providence, RI
A black ferris wheel more than fourteen feet tall.

55

Sable Elyse Smith

Born 1986 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in New York, NY
Abstract lines on black paper and wall.

56

Awilda Sterling-Duprey

Born 1947 in San Juan, PR
Lives in San Juan, PR
The exterior of Whitney's cafe with the text WHAT IS THE RULE OF LAW?

57

Rayyane Tabet

Born 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon
Lives in Beirut, Lebanon, and San Francisco, CA
Black-and-white canvas of criss-crossing lines going in all directions.

58

Denyse Thomasos

Born 1964 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Died 2012 in New York, NY
Blue mountains as seen through a natural archway.

59

Trinh T. Minh-ha

Born in Hanoi, Vietnam
Lives in Berkeley, CA
Iridescent vertical, organic lines

60

WangShui

Born 1986 in USA
Lives in New York, NY
A large sculpture of a bird with a body made of what looks like a large test tube filled with liquid.

61

Eric Wesley

Born 1973 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
A beaded artwork showing fourteen modulated triangles tip to tip.

62

Dyani White Hawk

Born 1976 in Madison, WI
Lives in Minneapolis, MN
Sičangu Lakota
Four projection screens of orange and blue tones in a blackened room.

63

Kandis Williams

Born 1985 in Baltimore, MD
Lives in Los Angeles, CA, and Brooklyn, NY

Events

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Audio guides

Colorful banners with lines of text on them, suspended from a ceiling.
Colorful banners with lines of text on them, suspended from a ceiling.

Renée Green, Space Poem #7 (Color Without Objects: Intra-Active May-Words), 2020 (installation view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York). Polyester nylon and thread, 28 double-sided banners, 42 × 32 in. (106.7 × 81.3 cm) each. Collection of the artist; courtesy the artist; Free Agent Media; and Bortolami, New York. Photograph by Ron Amstutz

Hear directly from artists and curators on selected works from the exhibition.

View guide

Exhibition Catalogue

Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept book cover
Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept book cover

Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept catalogue cover

The 2022 Whitney Biennial is accompanied by this landmark volume. Each of the Biennial’s participants is represented by a selected exhibition history, a bibliography, and imagery complemented by a personal statement or interview that foregrounds the artist’s own voice. Essays by the curators and other contributors elucidate themes of the exhibition and discuss the participants. The 2022 Biennial’s two curators, David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards, are known for their close collaboration with living artists. Coming after several years of seismic upheaval in and beyond the cultural, social, and political landscapes, this catalogue will offer a new take on the storied institution of the Biennial while continuing to serve—as previous editions have—as an invaluable resource on present-day trends in contemporary art in the United States.

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Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 33 works

In the News

"After three years of soul-rattling history, this year’s survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art is reflective and adult-thinking."—The New York Times

". . . the exhibition offers a mix of styles, practices and perspectives that invite contemplation, conversation and return engagements."—Gothamist

". . . a tender, understated survey of the American art scene as it stands right now that also acts as a means of processing the grief of the last two years."—ARTnews

". . . if this Biennial doesn’t feel quite like it can let itself go fully wild, there is also a quiet weirdness to it that sincerely reflects the disorienting headspace of the present, and that is worth the trip."—Artnet News

"Delayed for a year by the pandemic, the show is exciting without being especially pleasurable—it’s geared toward thought."—The New Yorker

". . . the show feels serious and thoughtful throughout, as if dire times require us to forgo old strategies of confrontation and performative anger and get down to the hard work of understanding the world."—The Washington Post

"Revelling in difference—not just of opinion but of style, focus, and approach, it pushes for meaningful exchanges between objects and viewers alike."—Ocula

"An ambitious survey of American art that locates both hope and precarity in the mutability of the present moment."—4Columns

"The 63 artists’ works interact with one another, offering alinear, yet continuous conversation through the psyche and also the pits of our stomachs."—Flaunt

"The exhibition mimics the range of emotions we felt during the past two years, from fear and pain to joy and hope, and everything in between."—Time Out New York

". . . this year’s offering, even with the inclusion of deceased artists, radiates with the power of now."—Vulture

Curatorial Statement
By David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards

Since the start of the pandemic, time has expanded, contracted, suspended, and blurred—often in dizzying succession. We began planning this Biennial in late 2019: before Covid and its reeling effects, before the uprisings demanding racial justice, before the widespread questioning of institutions and their structures, before the 2020 presidential election. Although underlying conditions are not new, their overlap, their intensity, and their sheer ubiquity created a context in which past, present, and future folded into one another. We organized this Biennial to reflect these precarious and improvised times. Many artists’ contributions are dynamic, taking different forms during the course of the exhibition. Artworks change, walls move, and performances animate the galleries and surrounding objects. The spaces of the Biennial contrast significantly, acknowledging the acute polarity of our society. One floor is a labyrinth, a dark space of containment; another is a clearing, open and light filled.

Rather than offering a unified theme, we pursue a series of hunches throughout the exhibition: that abstraction demonstrates a tremendous capacity to create, share, and sometimes withhold meaning; that research-driven conceptual art can combine the lushness of ideas and materiality; that personal narratives sifted through political, literary, and pop cultures can address larger social frameworks; that artworks can complicate the meaning of “American” by addressing the country’s physical and psychological boundaries; and that our present moment can be reimagined by engaging with under-recognized artistic models and artists we have lost. Deliberately intergenerational and interdisciplinary, this Biennial proposes that cultural, aesthetic, and political possibility begins with meaningful exchange and reciprocity.

The subtitle of this Biennial, Quiet as It’s Kept, is a colloquialism. We were inspired by the ways novelist Toni Morrison, jazz drummer Max Roach, and artist David Hammons have invoked it in their works. The phrase is typically said prior to something—often obvious—that should be kept secret. We also adorned the exhibition with a symbol, ) (, from a N. H. Pritchard poem, on view in the exhibition, as a gesture toward openness and interlude. All of the Whitney’s Biennials serve as forums for artists, and the works on view reflect their enigmas, the things that perplex them, and the important questions they are asking. But each of the Biennials also exists as an institutional statement, and every team of curators is entrusted with making an exhibition that resides within the Museum’s history, collection, and reputation. In its eightieth iteration, the Biennial continues to function as an ongoing experiment.

Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It's Kept is co-organized by David Breslin, DeMartini Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, and Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Mia Matthias, Curatorial Assistant; Gabriel Almeida Baroja, Curatorial Project Assistant; and Margaret Kross, former Senior Curatorial Assistant.

Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It's Kept is presented by

   

Generous support is provided by

 

Generous support is also provided by Judy Hart Angelo; The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston; Elaine Graham Weitzen Foundation for Fine Arts; Lise and Michael Evans; John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Kevin and Rosemary McNeely, Manitou Fund; The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation; The Rosenkranz Foundation; Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer and Robert Speyer; and the Whitney's National Committee.

Major support is provided by The Keith Haring Foundation Exhibition Fund, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and an anonymous donor.

Significant support is provided by 2022 Biennial Committee Co-Chairs: Jill Bikoff, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Barbara and Michael Gamson, Miyoung Lee, Bernard Lumpkin, Julie Mehretu, Fred Wilson; 2022 Biennial Committee Members: Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, Sarah Arison and Thomas Wilhelm, Candy and Michael Barasch, James Keith (JK) Brown and Eric Diefenbach, Eleanor and Bobby Cayre, Alexandre and Lori Chemla, Suzanne and Bob Cochran, Jenny Brorsen and Richard DeMartini, Fairfax Dorn and Marc Glimcher, Stephen Dull, Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg, Melanie Shorin and Greg S. Feldman, Jeffrey & Leslie Fischer Family Foundation, Cindy and Mark Galant, Christy and Bill Gautreaux, Debra and Jeffrey Geller Family Foundation, Aline and Gregory Gooding, Janet and Paul Hobby, Harry Hu, Peter H. Kahng, Michèle Gerber Klein, Ashley Leeds and Christopher Harland, Dawn and David Lenhardt, Jason Li, Marjorie Mayrock, Stacey and Robert Morse, Daniel Nadler, Opatrny Family Foundation, Orentreich Family Foundation, Nancy and Fred Poses, Marylin Prince, Eleanor Heyman Propp, George Wells and Manfred Rantner, Martha Records and Richard Rainaldi, Katie and Amnon Rodan, Jonathan M. Rozoff, Linda and Andrew Safran, Subhadra and Rohit Sahni, Erica and Joseph Samuels, Carol and Lawrence Saper, Allison Wiener and Jeffrey Schackner, Jack Shear, Annette and Paul Smith, the Stanley and Joyce Black Family Foundation, Robert Stilin, Rob and Eric Thomas-Suwall, and Patricia Villareal and Tom Leatherbury; as well as the Alex Katz Foundation, Further Forward Foundation, the Kapadia Equity Fund, Gloria H. Spivak, and an anonymous donor.

Funding is also provided by special Biennial endowments created by Melva Bucksbaum, Emily Fisher Landau, Leonard A. Lauder, and Fern and Lenard Tessler. 

Curatorial research and travel for this exhibition were funded by an endowment established by Rosina Lee Yue and Bert A. Lies, Jr., MD.

New York magazine is the exclusive media sponsor.

More from this series

Learn more about the Whitney Biennial, the longest-running survey of American art.

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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