Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Floor 5 Terrace

Born 1973 in Chicago, IL
Lives in Beacon, NY

Described by Dyson as a “monastic playground,” this installation is meant to be activated by visitors, who are invited to touch, sit on, and experience the work in a tactile way. This prompt speaks to Dyson’s conviction that liberation can be found at every register of movement: “freedom is an ongoing spatial question of motion and imagination.” Dyson composes geometries on an architectural scale using light and space as formal building blocks. Together, the monumental arcs, implied gestures, and surrounding natural light articulate changing abstract shapes over the course of each day and night.

For Dyson, the intertwining of abstraction and Blackness is a central philosophical concern that came out of an interest in public infrastructure. The relationships between ecology, belonging, and personal history take on new meaning with the terrace’s view of the Hudson River and the Museum’s location in one of New York’s most vulnerable flood zones.

This artwork is the inaugural Hyundai Terrace Commission. The multiyear Hyundai Motor partnership supports site-specific projects at the Whitney. Learn more about the artwork.