Shifting Landscapes

Through Jan 25

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A man with a yellow scarf stands by a table with bottles, a phone, and a charger, set against a textured gray background.
A man with a yellow scarf stands by a table with bottles, a phone, and a charger, set against a textured gray background.

Salman Toor, Man with Face Creams and Phone Plug, 2019. Oil on canvas, 43 × 35 3/4 in. (109.2 × 90.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee 2020.121. © Salman Toor

On view
Floor 6

Open: Nov 1, 2024–Jan 25, 2026

While the landscape genre has long been associated with picturesque vistas, Shifting Landscapes considers a more expansive interpretation of the category, exploring how evolving political, ecological, and social issues motivate artists as they attempt to represent the world around them. Drawn from the Whitney’s collection, the exhibition features works from the 1960s to the present and is organized according to distinct thematic sections. Some of these coalesce around material and conceptual affinities: sculptural assemblages formed from locally sourced objects, ecofeminist approaches to land art, and the legacies of documentary landscape photography. Others are tied to specific geographies, such as the frenzied cityscape of modern New York or the experimental filmmaking scene of 1970s Los Angeles. Still others show how artists invent fantastic new worlds where humans, animals, and the land become one. Whether depicting the effects of industrialization on the environment, grappling with the impact of geopolitical borders, or proposing imagined spaces as a way of destabilizing the concept of a “natural” world, the works gathered here bring ideas of land and place into focus, foregrounding how we shape and are shaped by the spaces around us.

Shifting Landscapes is organized by Jennie Goldstein, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator of the Collection; Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator; Roxanne Smith, Senior Curatorial Assistant; with Angelica Arbelaez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow; with thanks to Araceli Bremauntz-Enriquez and J. English Cook for research support.

Review accessibility information before visiting Shifting Landscapes.

Major support for Shifting Landscapes is provided by Judy Hart Angelo, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Whitney’s National Committee.

Significant support is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Generous support is provided by The Keith Haring Foundation Exhibition Fund.

En español

Aunque la pintura paisajista se ha asociado durante mucho tiempo con vistas pintorescas, Paisajes cambiantes considera una interpretación más amplia de esta categoría, explorando cómo la evolución de los temas políticos, ecológicos y sociales motiva a artistas cuando buscan representar el mundo que les rodea. La exhibición presenta obras de la colección del Whitney que abarcan desde la década de 1960 hasta el presente y está organizada en distintas secciones temáticas. Ciertas obras giran en torno a afinidades materiales y conceptuales: ensamblajes escultóricos construidos con objetos obtenidos localmente, enfoques ecofeministas del arte ambiental, los legados de la fotografía paisajista documental. Otras están vinculadas a geografías específicas, como los frenéticos paisajes urbanos del Nueva York moderno o la escena cinematográfica experimental de Los Ángeles en los años setenta. Algunas, muestran cómo artistas inventan mundos nuevos y fantásticos donde los seres humanos, los animales y la tierra se vuelven uno. Ya sea representando los efectos de la industrialización en el medio ambiente, abordando el impacto de las fronteras geopolíticas o proponiendo espacios imaginados como una forma de desestabilizar el concepto de un mundo “natural”, las obras reunidas aquí se centran en ideas de lugar y territorio, poniendo en primer plano cómo la gente da forma y a la vez es formada por los espacios que nos rodean.

Audio

Chelsey Pellot, Assistant Manager of Foundation & Government Relations, writes about the perfect soundtrack for Shifting Landscapes.

With its themes of cultural resistance, reclamation, and preservation, Bad Bunny’s 2025 album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, is the perfect soundtrack to Shifting Landscapes. Song by song, it directly overlaps with the exhibition’s core issues, offering a unique sonar and visual experience when paired together.  

The album’s opening track, NUEVAYoL, pays homage to New York City’s influence on Puerto Rican culture, a history explored in Shifting Landscapes’s New York Cityscapes section, which features Nuyorican artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Miguel Luciano, Hiram Maristany, Sophie Rivera, and Rigoberto Torres. These artists demonstrate that the influence goes both ways—Puerto Rico has had an immense impact on how we experience the Big Apple or la gran manzana.  

The song LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii draws parallels between Hawai’i and Puerto Rico’s complex relationships to the United States. It provides a somber soundtrack to Piliāmo‘o’s photographs depicting how the multiyear construction of the H-3 Interstate in O‘ahu, initiated by the U.S. government, impacted local communities. 

PERFuMITO NUEVO captures the essence of the other-worldly figure portrayed in Dalton Gata’s painting I Don’t Need You To Be Warm with its ethereal sound and dreamlike lyrics. Wearing a billowing furry coat, shiny black stiletto boots, and a crown of fire atop flowing blond hair, “The figure in Gata’s painting fashions a sense of self-confidence that is alluring,” the exhibition’s curator, Marcela Guerrero, observes. “She might very well be who Bad Bunny is singing about when he says ‘No parece leo ni escorpio; Pa mí que ella tiene su propio signo; Fría, sentimental, está en temporada de portarse mal.’” (“She doesn’t look like a Leo or Scorpio; I think she has her own sign; cold, sentimental, she’s in the season of misbehaving.”)  The exploration of evolving political, ecological, and social issues, and how artists portray the world around them, is the crux of Shifting Landscapes, and mirrors Bad Bunny's similar inspirations and motivations behind his powerful work of art, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.

Artworks

A person in a hospital gown with wires attached to their back sits beside a scene of building rubble and debris.

1

Altered Topographies

Person standing in the doorway of a storefront with "Young Lords Organization" sign and various posters on the window.

2

New York Cityscapes

Close-up of a textured, rough beige surface with irregular patterns and cracks.

3

Earthworks

Colorful snake illustration with a geometric blue head and a vibrant body transitioning from orange to blue, coiled in an S-shape.

4

Borderlands

A whimsical sculpture made of various materials, including wood, fabric, netting, and metal, creatively assembled into an abstract form.

5

Southern Assemblage

A black-and-white video projection of a person in a bathroom is displayed on a wall in a dimly lit room with a curved bench.

6

Los Angeles in Film and Video                                    
    

Vibrant abstract artwork featuring a central cluster of dark textures and colorful flowers, set against a dynamic background of swirling colors.

7

Another World

A digital display shows plants in a modern indoor setting, mounted on a stand in front of a glass-walled room.

8

Alan Michelson with Steven Fragale
Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019

Artists

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A digital display shows plants in a modern indoor setting, mounted on a stand in front of a glass-walled room.
A digital display shows plants in a modern indoor setting, mounted on a stand in front of a glass-walled room.

Installation view of Shifting Landscapes (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 1, 2024–January 2026). Alan Michelson with Steven Fragale, Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019, Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019. Photograph by Audrey Wang

Shifting Landscapes 
Floor 1

Learn more about selected works from artists and curators.

View guide
Colorful snake illustration with a geometric blue head and a vibrant body transitioning from orange to blue, coiled in an S-shape.
Colorful snake illustration with a geometric blue head and a vibrant body transitioning from orange to blue, coiled in an S-shape.

Luis Jimenez, Sidewinder, 1988. Lithograph: sheet (irregular), 23 1/4 × 34 1/2 in. (59.1 × 87.6 cm); image, 22 × 32 in. (55.9 × 81.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Susan and Scott Robertson 2002.2. © 2024 Luis Jimenez / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Shifting Landscapes 
Floor 6

Learn more about selected works from artists and curators.

View guide

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 117 works

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.