Accessibility Information
Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing
The Whitney invites all visitors to immerse themselves in the richness and complexity of contemporary American art at the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Even Better Than the Real Thing. To make the most of your visit, review a few accessibility considerations to expect in the exhibition, located on Floors 1, 3, 5, and 6. If you need to request accessibility accommodations, please review our Accessibility page.
All floors
- The exhibition includes multimedia artworks, paintings, sculptures, installations in space, sound works, and videos. We invite you to engage with these works but unless explicitly noted otherwise, please do not touch artworks in the exhibition.
- Various types of seating are offered throughout the exhibition.
- All videos in this exhibition contain captions in English and Spanish directly on the video and/or in mobile caption format. Links to these captions and transcripts of works with sound are located in the Access section of the Mobile Guide and can be accessed using the QR code available on the gallery labels.
- The exhibition offers interpretive resources, including interviews with the artists and curators, and verbal descriptions of select artworks in English and Spanish on the Mobile Guide.
- The exhibition has audio descriptions for two video works: Tourmaline’s Pollinator on Floor 5 and Seba Calfuqueo’s TRAY TRAY KO on Floor 6. To access the audio descriptions, scan the QR codes in the galleries with your mobile device. Please note that visitors must use their own headphones.
- Multiple tours and programs will be designed for visitors with a wide range of disabilities to further engage with the 2024 Biennial. For more information, go to our Access Services page.
Main stairwell and freight elevator
- Holland Andrews has two sound works: Air I Breathe: Radio in the main stairwell and Hyperacusis Version 1: Sleeping Bag in the freight elevator.
Floor 5
- A 15 by 20-foot work by Charisse Pearlina Weston made of tempered glass hangs diagonally in space near the introductory texts to the show on Floor 5 across from the main stairwell. Standing 1 foot off the ground at its lowest edge near the wall, un- (anterior ellipse[s] as mangled container; or where edges meet to wedge and [un]moor) slopes upward, reaching about 20 feet tall as it points towards the center of the gallery. Visitors can go around and under the work up to the sandpaper tape line on the floor but not touch it.
- Towards the west side of Floor 5, Lotus L. Kang’s installation In Cascades includes multiple tatami mats on the floor with cast sculptures and large, unspooled rolls of photographic film. These works do not have stanchions and should not be touched. The room has a ten-person limit and a waiting queue when it is at capacity.
- People with photosensitive epilepsy or who may be susceptible to seizures should avoid Ligia Lewis’s film A Plot, A Scandal, which contains flashing and strobing effects. Warning signage is outside the screening room.
- Dala Nasser’s Adonis River is a large sculptural piece made of wood, clay, and fabric in the center of the galleries. Mobility devices and canes can get caught in the fabric, which extends to the ground. Visitors are encouraged to walk around this work but not touch it. There are no stanchions.
- Constantina Zavitsanos’s installation All the time and Call to Post (Violet) is in a room with low purple lighting and a ramp in the center of the floor. White tape and purple lighting mark the ramp edges for visibility. Visitors are encouraged to walk, lie, and sit on the ramp, but please take care not to bump into the projector to the right of it. Access a verbal description of this work in English and Spanish on the Mobile Guide by scanning the QR code in the gallery.
- Towards the east side of the galleries, Karyn Olivier’s sculpture, How Many Ways Can You Disappear, made of salt-cast rope with resin and buoys, is installed on the floor and does not have stanchions. Please take care not to touch or step on the work.
- Isaac Julien’s installation is a dark room with a carpeted floor and mirrors lining the walls. Five large screens play his film Once Again (Statues Never Die), and statues are displayed in vitrines.
- Torkwase Dyson’s sculpture, Liquid Shadows, Solid Dreams (A Monastic Playground), is on the Museum’s fifth-floor terrace. Visitors are invited to touch and interact with the work.
Floor 6
- Four paintings by Suzanne Jackson hang in the center of Floor 6. Visitors are encouraged to walk around these paintings but keep them from touching them. The room does not contain any stanchions..
- Two video works on Floor 6–Diane Severin Nguyen’s In Her Time (Iris’s Version) on the northwest side of the gallery and Seba Calfuqueo’s TRAY TRAY KO in the center of the floor—contain flashing and strobing effects that should be avoided by people who have photosensitive epilepsy or who may be susceptible to seizures. Warning signage is outside the black-box rooms that feature these works. In Her Time also contains the sound of loud gunshots.
- Kiyan Williams’s sculpture Ruins of Empire II or The Earth Swallows the Master’s House, on the terrace, recreates the north facade of the White House, which is leaning on one side and sinking into a bed of earth. Visitors may walk on the dirt ground but cannot touch the rest of the work.
Mobile guide access stops
Floor 1 Mobile Guide Access Stops
Floor 3 Mobile Guide Access Stops