Not Everything Is Given

May 9, 2024–May 24, 2024

A black square centered on a beige paper with decorative borders and Arabic script at the bottom.

2024 ISP Curatorial Exhibition
ISP, 745 Washington Street
Opening: Thursday, May 9, 6–8 pm

Gallery Hours for ISP: Wednesday–Sunday: 1-6 pm; Closed Monday, Tuesday

The aspirations of language often leave words skirting around the edges of emotions, grasping at their depth. What fuels the demand to decipher as a measure of value or the foundation of understanding? This exhibition disturbs the expectations from artworks and artists to “demonstrate,” “elucidate,” or ‘’bear witness’’ to the fraught conditions of our world. Amid multiple ways of knowing and forms of communication, not everything has to be given or shared.

The artists gathered here circumvent and interrogate the expectations placed on them by overdetermined categories (race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, geography), reorienting towards the self and those with shared experiences. In doing so, they complicate histories of past and present genocide, logics of anti-Blackness and settler colonialism, and gesture to concealed structures of control, including those imposed by the State, the law, and the archive. Through practices of withholding and self-articulation, they interrupt linear narratives using forms of coded communication, experimenting with strategies of obscurity and material form while affirming the poetics of mythmaking and fiction and underscoring the fragility of subjecthood.

As curators, we reckon with the urge to respond to the pervasive and gratuitous violence that is foundational to the world we live in and extends to the history of exhibition-making. Holding these tensions, we suspend the need to comprehend to consider alternative social and political modes.

Wheelchair Accessibility
ISP has a step free entrance, is wheelchair accessible and has a wheelchair accessible bathroom.

There is no ticketing required, admission is free.

Whitney Independent Study Program Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Program Fellows

Ella den Elzen
Gervais Marsh
Carlota Ortiz Monasterio
Alper Turan

Artists featured in the 2024 Curatorial Exhibition

Noor Abed
Laakuluk Williamson Bathory
Niloufar Emamifar
Naomi Rincón Gallardo
Aziz Hazara
Joyce Joumaa
BAÇOY KOOP
Diyar Mayil
Shala Miller
İz Öztat
Taqralik Partridge
Kameelah Janan Rasheed
Cameron Rowland
Ebun Sodipo
Oraib Toukan
Charisse Pearlina Weston
Zişan

Events

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Installation Photography

Two life-sized portraits of women, one in red and one in blue, are projected onto wooden panels in a dimly lit room with a kitchen area.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). Taqralik Partridge and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Inissaliortut: Making Room, 2022. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A wall-mounted TV displays a shirtless person standing in front of a blue house with trees. The room has white walls and a wooden floor.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). Aziz Hazara, Takbir, 2021. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A mop with a long handle and white strands leans against the corner of a room with white walls and a wooden floor.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). Diyar Mayil, Mop, 2022. Photograph by Filip Wolak

Two large wooden panels display life-sized projections of women, one in a red outfit and the other in a blue dress, in a dimly lit room.

A staircase with dark steps and white walls, featuring a decorative metal railing on the left and a geometric patterned floor at the bottom.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). Kameelah Janan Rasheed, ,they feed on the altitude of our afterlife, 2024; On speaker: Shala Miller, Obsidian Theme (Edition Three), 2023. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A staircase with gray steps and white railings, leading to a wall with a blackboard featuring white chalk drawings and text.

A room with wooden chairs, a fireplace, and a large screen displaying a black-and-white image of a statue's face.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Zişan, Felaket (Catastrophe), 1923; Oraib Toukain, Offing, 2021. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A room with a fireplace, two chairs, and a large screen displaying a colorful image of a carnival ride. Subtitles read, "This is what we were told—or what I inherited."

A dimly lit room with a projector displaying an old film on a white wall. The film shows two people in dark clothing outdoors.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). Noor Abed, our songs were ready for all wars to come, 2021. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A dark room with a projector displaying a close-up of a person's face with vibrant orange and yellow hues. Subtitles read, "when animals, people and all creatures."

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Resiliencia Tlacuache (Opossum Resilience), 2019. Photograph by Filip Wolak

Minimalist art gallery with wooden floors, featuring abstract sculptures and paintings. A small table with a cloth is centered near a large window.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Charisse Pearlina Weston, diaphanous envelop of the object side, 2024; Niloufar Emamifar, Three Inches And A Half, 2018; Shala Miller, The Makings of a Supervillain, 2023; Diyar Mayil, Sitting Through, 2019; Charisse Pearlina Weston, that old saying is true: you’ve got to weep what you sow, 2017. Photograph by Filip Wolak

Minimalist art gallery with wooden floors, white walls, and abstract sculptures. Two tall, thin sculptures lean against the walls, and one stands on the floor.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Niloufar Emamifar, Three Inches And A Half, 2018; Charisse Pearlina Weston, diaphanous envelop of the object side, 2024; Niloufar Emamifar, Three Inches And A Half, 2018. Photograph by Filip Wolak

Minimalist art gallery with wooden floors, white walls, and large windows. Features abstract paintings, sculptures, and a table with a white cloth.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Cameron Rowland, 0D20612, 2014; Niloufar Emamifar, Three Inches And A Half, 2018; Charisse Pearlina Weston, diaphanous envelop of the object side, 2024; Diyar Mayil, Sitting Through, 2019; Niloufar Emamifar, Three Inches And A Half, 2018; Shala Miller, The Makings of a Supervillain, 2023; Charisse Pearlina Weston, that old saying is true: you’ve got to weep what you sow, 2017. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A small white shelf with a dark object on it, next to a doorway leading to a room with a wall-mounted screen displaying an outdoor scene.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Ebun Sopido, Prosthesis for freedom - Mary Jones’ piece of cow leather pierced and opened like a woman’s womb’, 2022; Aziz Hazara, Takbir, 2021. Photograph by Filip Wolak

A hallway with wooden floors, white walls, a sliding door, and two electrical panels, one of which is illuminated.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Diyar Mayil, Mop, 2022; Joyce Joumaa, Hallab Bldg, 2024; Joyce Joumaa, Mafra’ Baladiye, 2024. Photograph by Filip Wolak

Minimalist gallery with wooden floors, white walls, abstract painting, and a small shelf holding a black object. An open doorway leads to another room.

Installation view of Not Everything is Given: Whitney ISP 23/24 Curatorial Exhibition (Independent Study Program, New York, May 9-May 24, 2024). From left to right: Charisse Pearlina Weston, that old saying is true: you’ve got to weep what you sow, 2017; Ebun Sopido, Prosthesis for freedom - Mary Jones’ piece of cow leather pierced and opened like a woman’s womb’, 2022; Aziz Hazara, Takbir, 2021. Photograph by Filip Wolak

Generous support for the Independent Study Program is provided by Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo, the Elaine Graham Weitzen Foundation for Fine Art, the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, and Diane and Robert Moss.

Significant support is provided by The Capital Group Charitable Foundation, Margaret Morgan and Wesley Phoa, Gloria H. Spivak, and the Whitney Contemporaries through their annual Art Party benefit.