Whitney Biennial 2026

In Consumables Ash Arder uses solar panels located outdoors on the Museum grounds to power a refrigerator. Inside she has placed Cadillac hood ornaments—objects that suggest stability and status—cast in perishable, nourishing materials including butter, shea butter, and chocolate. Arder modeled the emblems from a keepsake hood ornament from a car owned by her late father, who worked for General Motors, the parent company of Cadillac. 

The word “broadcast” has two meanings: the transmission of audiovisual material and the scattering of seeds by hand or machine. In Arder’s Broadcast #4, these meanings converge, as an analog synthesizer emits a low, rhythmic frequency, dispersing seeds across trays of soil that can later be placed into the ground as living records of sonic and genetic data.