Inheritance

June 28, 2023–Feb 4, 2024

Superimposed black and white film photos of a child.
Superimposed black and white film photos of a child.

Sophie Rivera, I am U, 1995. Gelatin silver print, 38 5/8 × 38 9/16 in. (98.1 × 97.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the artist 2019.390. © Estate of Dr. Martin Hurwitz 




Lea el siguiente texto en español

Inheritance traces the profound impacts of legacy and the past across familial, historical, and aesthetic lines. Featuring new acquisitions and rarely-seen works from the Whitney collection by forty-three leading artists, the exhibition includes paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, and time-based media installations from the 1970s to today. This diverse array of works consider what has been passed on and how it may shift, change, or live again.

Drawing inspiration from Ephraim Asili’s 2020 film of the same title, Inheritance reflects on multiple meanings of the word, whether celebratory or painful, from one era, person, or idea to the next. The exhibition takes a layered approach to storytelling by interweaving narrative with documentary and personal experiences with historical and generational events. A group of works examining the cycle from birth to death opens the exhibition, while other galleries take up different kinds of lineages, such as how artists borrow from and remake art history or unspool legacies of racialized violence and their recurrences.

The poet Rio Cortez speaks of being “framed by our future knowing”—even as we sit in this moment, we slide backward and forward in time, between our foremothers and the descendants we will never know. Rather than passively accepting our current state, the artists whose work is on view here ask: How did we get here, as individuals and as a society, and where are we going?

This exhibition is organized by Rujeko Hockley, Arnhold Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art with David Lisbon, curatorial assistant.

Press Highlights

“The thematic content of the show is ambitious, ranging from slavery and the Great Migration to Covid, African religious traditions, the human lifespan, colonization and the sources of artistic creativity.” —The Guardian

“The show considers some of the painful and difficult legacies that have shaped our society…”  —Aesthetica Magazine 

“...a captivating group show at the Whitney” —Whitewall

“This is an exhibition that raises a number of questions about how we as individuals respond to our world…” —Highbrow Magazine 

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Frank WANG Yefeng, The Levitating Perils #2

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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