I, YOU, WE
Apr 25–Sept 1, 2013
Nicholas Nixon (b. 1947), Catherine and Tom Moran, East Braintree, Massachusetts, 1987.Gelatin silver print, 7 11 16 x 9 5 8 in. (19.5 x 24.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2003.249
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
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
© Tina Barney
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
© Lorna Simpson
![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."](https://whitneymedia.org/assets/image/428393/large_2002.183_wojnarowicz_imageprimacy_compressed_788.jpg)
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
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
© 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
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
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
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
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
© Robert Gober 1992-1996
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
© Nan Goldin
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
© The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
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
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
© The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Inc
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
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
© Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
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
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
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
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
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
Events
View all-
Wed,
Sept 11
Curatorial Laboratory: Perspectives on the Whitney’s Collection
6:45–9 pm
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Wed,
Aug 7
Artist Talk and Screening: Dear Klaus and Minou
7 pm
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Fri,
July 26
Canceled: I, YOU, WE Stroller Tour
12–1 pm
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Thurs,
July 25
Rescheduled: Curatorial Laboratory: Perspectives on the Whitney’s Collection
6:45–9 pm
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Sat,
July 13
Member Saturday Night
6:30–8:30 pm
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Sat,
June 1
Member Saturday Night
6:30–8:30 pm
Installation Photography
Installation view of I, YOU, WE (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 25–September 1, 2013). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
Installation view of I, YOU, WE (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 25–September 1, 2013). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
Installation view of I, YOU, WE (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 25–September 1, 2013). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
Installation view of I, YOU, WE (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 25–September 1, 2013). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
Installation view of I, YOU, WE (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 25–September 1, 2013). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
Installation view of I, YOU, WE (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 25–September 1, 2013). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
In the News
"This is an exhibition that faces AIDS head-on, as it does identity."
—The New York Times
"The Whitney Finds the Good Thing About the '80s"
—The Village Voice
Video: Curator David Kiehl leads a walk-through of the exhibition.
—Here TV
"An intense and poignant selection of works from the Whitney’s permanent collection that is worth catching"
—ARTnews
"A stunning, stirring exhibit"
—A&U Magazine