Exhibitions

I, YOU, WE

Apr 25–Sept 1, 2013

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A black-and-white photograph by Nicholas Nixon. A woman touches the face of a younger man.

I, you, we: three very commonplace words. These pronouns—with all their implied complexities of meaning—provide an unexpected guide for assessing the works of art from the 1980s and early 1990s in the Museum’s collection. What becomes apparent in this survey of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs is how the personal, social, and collective issues and concerns of the artists of this time are still relevant several decades later.

I, YOU, WE is organized by David Kiehl, Nancy and Fred Poses Curator.

Ongoing support for the permanent collection and major support for I, YOU, WE is provided by
Bank of America.

I, YOU, WE is the fifth in a two-year series of exhibitions which reassess the Whitney’s collection in anticipation of the Museum’s move downtown. Unfolding chronologically, these exhibitions explore overlooked developments in American art and reconsider iconic figures and works within new contexts.

Artworks

Photo of a man with a dog and a man reading, a girl and a woman in a room.

Tina Barney, The Landscape, 1988. Chromogenic print, 45 3/8 × 58 3/8 in. (115.3 × 148.3 cm). Edition no. 1/10. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz 93.11

Three images in black and white with text around them.

Lorna Simpson, Counting, 1991. Photogravure and screenprint: 73 3/4 × 37 7/8 in. (187.3 × 96.2 cm). Edition no. 60/60. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 93.94

A print of a smiling child surrounded by text that reads "One day this kid will get larger. One day this kid will come to know something that causes a sensation equivalent to the separation of the earth from its axis. One day this kid will reach a point where he senses a division that isn't mathematical. One day this kid will feel something stir in his heart and throat and mouth. One day this kid will find something in his mind and body and soul that makes him hungry. One day this kid will do something that causes men who wear the uniforms of priests and rabbis, men who inhabit certain stone buildings, to call for his death. One day politicians will enact legislation against this kid. One day families will give false information down generationally to their families and that information will be designed to make existence intolerable for this kid. One day this kid will begin to experience all this activity in his environment and that activity and information will compell [sic] him to commit suicide or submit to danger in hopes of being murdered or submit to silence and invisibility. Or one day this kid will talk. When he begins to talk, men who develop a fear of this kid will attempt to silence him with strangling, fits, prison, suffocation, rape, intimidation, drugging, ropes, guns, laws, menace, roving gangs, bottles, knives, religion, decapitation, and immolation by fire. Doctors will pronounce this kid curable as if his brain were a virus. This kid will lose his constitutional rights against the government's invasion of his privacy. This kid will be faced with electro-shock, drugs, and conditioning therapies in laboratories tended by psychologists and research scientists. He will be subject to loss of home, civil rights, jobs, and all conceivable freedoms. All this will begin to happen in one or two years when he discovers he desires to place his naked body on the naked body of another boy."

David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One day this kid . . .), 1990. Photostat, 30 × 40 1/8 in. (76.2 × 101.9 cm). Edition of 10. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 2002.183. Courtesy The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York, NY

Man with oil stained shirt stands with arms crossed.

Richard Avedon, Bill Curry, drifter, Interstate 40, Yukon, Oklahoma, 6/16/80, 1980, from In the American West, 1979–84. Gelatin silver print mounted on aluminum, 47 × 37 9/16 in. (119.4 × 95.4 cm). Edition no. 3/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Norma and Martin Stevens 98.24

A painting with a yellow background, words written and crossed out, and three faces.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hollywood Africans, 1983. Acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 84 1/16 x 84 in. (213.5 x 213.4 cm). Gift of Douglas S. Cramer 84.23. © 2015 The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Woman in a painting with a pink background.

John Currin, Skinny Woman, 1992. Oil on canvas, 50 1/8 × 38 1/16 in. (127.3 × 96.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from The List Purchase Fund and the Painting and Sculpture Committee 92.30

A painting depicting people having fun at the beach on the left and refugees at the beach on the right.

Eric Fischl, A Visit To / A Visit From / The Island, 1983. Oil on canvas, 84 × 168in. (213.4 × 426.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase, with funds from the Louis and Bessie Adler Foundation, Inc., Seymour M. Klein, President 83.17a b

Black and white page from the New York Times.

Robert Gober, Untitled, 1992–96. Photolithograph, 22 7/16 × 13 9/16 in. (57 × 34.5 cm). Edition no. 4/40. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 97.5

Six color images of people in various scenes.

Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, 1979–96 (detail). Nine-carousel projection with approximately 700 slides, soundtrack, and titles, dimensions variable. Edition no. 1/10. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from The Charles Engelhard Foundation, the Mrs. Percy Uris Bequest, the Painting and Sculpture Committee, and the Photography Committee 92.127

Black background with a message in white at the bottom.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled [Billboard Poster], 1989. Photo-screenprint, 16 5/8 × 21 5/8 in. (42.2 × 54.9 cm). Published by the Public Art Fund Inc., New York. Edition no. 28/250. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner 2005.138

Glenn Ligon, Untitled (I Do Not Always Feel Colored), 1990. Oil stick and gesso on panel, 80 × 30 1/16 × 1 1/2 in. (203.2 × 76.4 × 3.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The Bohen Foundation in honor of Thomas N. Armstrong <span class="caps">III 2001.275

Two men with bald heads stand side by side.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Moody and Robert Sherman, 1984. Gelatin silver print, 15 1/8 × 15 3/16 in. (38.4 × 38.6 cm). AP 1/2 AP. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Inc. 97.103.3

Family sits in a car in a black and white photo.

Mary Ellen Mark, The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California, 1987. Gelatin silver print, 14 9/16 × 14 3/4 in. (37 × 37.5 cm). Edition no. 12/75. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from Raymond W. Merritt 2001.162

Woman in Hijab with arabic written on her face and body.

Shirin Neshat, Unveiling, 1993, from the series Women of Allah. Gelatin silver print and ink, 59 3/4 × 39 3/4 in. (151.8 × 101 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2000.267

Catherine Opie, Self-Portrait, 1993. Chromogenic print, 39 5/8 × 29 15/16 in. (100.6 × 76 cm). Edition no. 1/8. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 94.64

Kiki Smith, Untitled, 1986. Twelve clear glass bottles, 20 × 10 1/2 × 10 1/2 in. (50.8 × 26.7 × 26.7 cm) each. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The American Contemporary Art Foundation, Leonard A. Lauder, President, in honor of David W. Kiehl 2006.78a-l

Two fireman kissing in front of brick buildings.

Martin Wong, Big Heat, 1988. Synthetic polymer on canvas, 60 1/8 × 48 in. (152.7 × 121.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee 99.89. © Estate of Martin Wong; courtesy The Estate of Martin Wong and P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY

Fingers interlocked in a black and white photo.

John Coplans, Self-Portrait (Interlocking Fingers, No. 18), 2000. Gelatin silver print mounted on board, 31 1/8 × 24 in. (79.1 × 61 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from Ann and Steven Ames 2000.98

Woman with red shades and detailed background.

Ruth Ellen Weisberg (b. 1942), Passage, 1985. Lithograph, 36 1/4 × 29 11/16in. (92.1 × 75.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Gary M. and Brenda H. Ruttenberg 94.200

Drawing of a woman undressing below letters C and K.

Karen Kilimnik, CK, 1993. Wax crayon and synthetic polymer on paper, 35 1/8 × 22 7/16 in. (89.2 × 57 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The Bohen Foundation 95.31 On view

Artists

Catherine Opie
11 works in the collection
Ed Paschke
3 works in the collection
Jack Pierson
20 works in the collection
Richard Prince
57 works in the collection
David Salle
23 works in the collection
Juan Sánchez
6 works in the collection
Cindy Sherman
25 works in the collection
Roger Shimomura
13 works in the collection
Lorna Simpson
24 works in the collection
Kiki Smith
130 works in the collection
Nancy Spero
8 works in the collection
Hugh Steers
2 works in the collection
Peter Hujar
41 works in the collection
Anton van Dalen
2 works in the collection
Carrie Mae Weems
12 works in the collection
Ruth Ellen Weisberg
4 works in the collection
David Wojnarowicz
48 works in the collection
Martin Wong
7 works in the collection
Francesca Woodman
4 works in the collection
Shelby Lee Adams
4 works in the collection
Richard Avedon
9 works in the collection
Luis Cruz Azaceta
3 works in the collection
Tina Barney
80 works in the collection
Jean-Michel Basquiat
6 works in the collection
Beverly Buchanan
11 works in the collection
Bullet Space
1 work in the collection
Nancy Burson
1 work in the collection
Debbie Fleming Caffery
2 works in the collection
Sue Coe
25 works in the collection
John Coplans
30 works in the collection
John Currin
5 works in the collection
Jim Dine
93 works in the collection
Moira Dryer
4 works in the collection
Eric Fischl
18 works in the collection
General Idea
2 works in the collection
Robert Gober
50 works in the collection
Nan Goldin
24 works in the collection
Leon Golub
6 works in the collection
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
14 works in the collection
Group Material
1 work in the collection
Jane Hammond
11 works in the collection
Keith Haring
6 works in the collection
Anthony Hernandez
28 works in the collection
Tim Hillis
1 work in the collection
Jenny Holzer
35 works in the collection
Jeff
1 work in the collection
Jasper Johns
212 works in the collection
Deborah Kass
4 works in the collection
Karen Kilimnik
2 works in the collection
Barbara Kruger
6 works in the collection
Alfred Leslie
8 works in the collection
Les Levine
1 work in the collection
Glenn Ligon
40 works in the collection
Hung Liu
5 works in the collection
Robert Longo
10 works in the collection
Sally Mann
12 works in the collection
Robert Mapplethorpe
19 works in the collection
Mary Ellen Mark
4 works in the collection
Alfred Martinez
1 work in the collection
Donald Moffett
5 works in the collection
Frank Moore
18 works in the collection
Mark Morrisroe
22 works in the collection
Shirin Neshat
6 works in the collection
Nicholas Nixon
18 works in the collection
Barbara Norfleet
1 work in the collection
Lesley Dill
7 works in the collection
Andrew Castrucci
3 works in the collection
Miguel Piñero
1 work in the collection
Nadia Coën
1 work in the collection
Betzaida Concepcion
1 work in the collection
John Fekner
1 work in the collection
Vincent Gagliostro
1 work in the collection
Avram Finkelstein
1 work in the collection
Day Gleeson
1 work in the collection
Dennis Thomas
1 work in the collection
Lady Pink
1 work in the collection
Red Rodriguez
1 work in the collection
Will Sales
1 work in the collection

Videos

I, YOU, WE: Cynthia Carr on David Wojnarowicz
I, YOU, WE: Art & AIDS
I, YOU, WE: Art & Activism in the 1980s

Events

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Wed,
Sept 11

Curatorial Laboratory: Perspectives on the Whitney’s Collection

6:45–9 pm
Wed,
Aug 7

Artist Talk and Screening: Dear Klaus and Minou

7 pm
Fri,
July 26

Canceled: I, YOU, WE Stroller Tour

12–1 pm
Thurs,
July 25

Rescheduled: Curatorial Laboratory: Perspectives on the Whitney’s Collection

6:45–9 pm
Sat,
July 13

Member Saturday Night

6:30–8:30 pm
Sat,
June 1

Member Saturday Night

6:30–8:30 pm