Whitney Biennial 2026

In Everything wants to kill you and you should be afraid, Precious Okoyomon presents fifty-five suspended creatures with bodies sewn together from taxidermied bird wings and discarded children's toys salvaged from thrift stores. The resulting sculptures hang from nooses in reference to the history of racial violence in the United States. For Okoyomon, the angel-like forms are rife with contradictions. They are marked by both death and eternal life, defined by flight yet subject to gravity, and perpetually burdened by the weight of grief.

The installation also includes six figures that relate to Okoyomon's work on the fifth floor. The artist created these sculptures by combining plush bunny suits from the 1960s with the heads of blackface dolls from the 1930s or 1940s. The soft animal bodies, signals of childhood innocence and comfort, serve as silent hosts to racial caricature. As Okoyomon notes, the dolls "inhabit the uneasy threshold between object and subject, play and punishment, animation and death."