Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Floor 5

Born 1983 in Gallup, NM, Diné Bikéyah
Lives in Portland, OR, and elsewhere

As a poet and activist, Demian DinéYazhi’ has thought about how to use a colonizer’s language against colonialism, noting that they “want to see more poetry at protests.” Here, their work is intentionally telegraphic—hung by the window so that it is visible from inside the Museum and out, and mounted on frameworks that suggest protest signs. Written in red neon, the text emerges from the artist’s reflections on Indigenous resistance movements and pays homage to Klee Benally, a Diné activist, musician, and friend of the artist. DinéYazhi’ calls on people working toward liberation to avoid predicting futures rooted in a Euro- Western “romanticization and addiction with apocalypse,” speculating that accepting catastrophe as a given leads to “writing our own demise or prisons.” Instead, they advocate for writing stories of liberation, finding alternate ways to work through oppressive moments as a collective.