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.

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Emily Barker

7

Floor 5

Born 1992 in San Diego, CA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA

Emily Barker based Kitchen on their own experiences using a wheelchair, exaggerating the height of the countertops—which, at 5’9”, are the average height of adult men in the U.S. Barker aims to show how “the seemingly mundane built environment and the mass production of objects harms people every day.” The artist was drawn to the materiality of translucent plastic for both practical reasons—it is lightweight and easy to work with—and expressive ones. “I want people to experience this glimmering, transparent, massive three-dimensional object catching the light and their first impression to be one of atmospheric formal beauty.” Barker has described the second impression being a realization of the profound obstacles faced by people with disabilities.

Kitchen, 2019

An arrangement of plastic constructs made to look like kitchen cabinets.

Emily Barker, Kitchen, 2019 (installation view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York). PET plastic, 15 × 15 × 15 ft. (4.6 × 4.6 × 4.6 m). Collection of the artist. Photograph by Sandenwolff

An arrangement of plastic constructs made to look like kitchen cabinets.

  • Emily Barker, Death by 7865 Paper Cuts

    0:00

    Emily Barker, Death by 7865 Paper Cuts

    0:00

    Narrator: This installation represents six month's worth of medical records and hospital bills in the life of artist Emily Barker, who experienced a spinal cord injury and uses a wheelchair.

    Emily Barker: It’s the printout of the files that I got from the hospital. It shows the medical industrial system and the healthcare industrial system and the pharmaceutical industrial system and how those all operate together when something tragic happens or an accident happens. You’re then faced with millions of dollars of medical bills and debt.

    And so the first six months of being hospitalized, I racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars, or I think I hit a million in the first year. I was nineteen years old, there’s a date of the start of the paperwork, and it’s almost like an oral history of what my body experienced in those first six months being hospitalized and having surgeries. 

    What if this happened to you, which it could at any moment? And how do we create systems and a world in which it makes sense for all of us and it doesn’t further traumatize and harm us after something bad has already happened? My experience has been one that there are not systems of care in place for anything out of the ordinary happening or outside of the status quo that your being different and becoming different is severely punished and very expensive. I don’t even mean to make work that is so charged, politically. This is just my experience and I couldn’t make work about anything else at this point.

  • Emily Barker, Death by 7865 Paper Cuts and Kitchen

    In Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It's Kept

    0:00

    Emily Barker, Death by 7865 Paper Cuts and Kitchen

    0:00

    Narrator: This installation represents six month’s worth of medical records and hospital bills in the life of artist Emily Barker, who experienced a spinal cord injury and uses a wheelchair. 

    Emily Barker: It’s the printout of the files that I got from the hospital. It shows the medical industrial system and the healthcare industrial system and the pharmaceutical industrial system and how those all operate together when something tragic happens or an accident happens. You’re then faced with millions of dollars of medical bills and debt.

    And so the first six months of being hospitalized, I racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars, or I think I hit a million in the first year. I was nineteen years old, there's a date of the start of the paperwork, and It’s almost like an oral history of what my body experienced in those first six months being hospitalized and having surgeries. 

    Emily Barker: As far as the kitchen piece is concerned, I was examining a blind spot in our culture and in our society and in the world in general of which we have these dimensional standards.

    Narrator: The disorienting height of this kitchen replicates the feeling the artist has navigating the built environment in a wheelchair.

    Emily Barker: You have a standard or a norm for something that will exclude people that exist outside of this conceived norm or standard. And so the piece itself is questioning the repercussions of building a world for a very limited amount of people in a very specific point in their lives that doesn't consider aging or disability or motherhood or living outside of a very specific body type in the world.

    So the height of the kitchen countertop goes to just above the chest level for the average height of a U.S. male. So not a very tall person but a medium-height person in the U.S. And so it’s forcing a perspective that exist in every single space that we encounter, because in every single building and restaurants everywhere are these design standards and norms that really infantilize and leave out and patronize people who do not fit within these preconceived notions of normalcy that are absurd really, that shouldn't exist.

    Narrator: Barker talked about their decision to use a transparent material to create the kitchen.

    Emily Barker: These are invisible ideas, concepts and scales that we're working with. And so it was more of a metaphorical choice for it to be transparent. And I'm trying to be transparent with the work as much as possible. I’m trying to be transparent and vulnerable without being too intimidating because of the scale, because I don't want these ideas or concepts to cause people to feel guilty or intimidated or defensive. I want them to take this experience with them in a way where the first impression is one of beauty.

    What if this happened to you, which it could at any moment? And how do we create systems and a world in which it makes sense for all of us and it doesn't further traumatize and harm us after something bad has already happened? My experience has been one that there are not systems of care in place for anything out of the ordinary happening or outside of the status quo that your Being different and becoming different is severely punished and very expensive. I don't even mean to make work that is so charged, politically. This is just my experience and I couldn't make work about anything else at this point.

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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

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

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 catalogue cover

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

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