Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as it’s Kept

Every two years, the Whitney Museum holds an exhibition that is regarded as one of the most important and influential events in contemporary art. Some version of this exhibition, the Whitney Biennial, has been in existence since 1932, making it the longest-running survey of American art. Delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s biennial is a “startlingly coherent and bold” forum for artists’ musings on the events, changes, and trials of last three years. There is a wide variety of perspectives and mediums, from more traditional painting, sculpture, and photography to experimentations with performance, video, light, chemicals, makeup and prosthetics, textiles, and technology. The artworks tackle a wide range of themes, including racial justice, class discrepancy, capitalism, corporatism, imperialism and the effects of colonialist action, the American prison system, indigenous issues, and the widespread grief of a global pandemic. An exhibition this far-reaching and ambitious could easily feel disjointed and chaotic, but instead it encourages the viewer to understand that the issues and conditions addressed by the art “are not new, their overlap, their intensity, and their sheer ubiquity created a context in which past, present, and future folded into one another.” The curators “organized this Biennial to reflect these precarious and improvised times.”

Mom-and-Pops of the L.E.S.

“Mom-and-Pops of the L.E.S.” is a mixed media installation that celebrates small, family owned shops in the Lower East Side, most of which have shuttered. The wood frame structure, by architectural and interior photographers Karla and James Murray, features four nearly life-size and incredibly realistic photographs of a bodega, coffee shop/luncheonette, vintage store, and newsstand. In creating the piece, they wanted to recognize the “unique and irreplaceable contribution made to New York by small, often family-owned businesses” and celebrate places that “helped bring the community together through people’s daily interactions.” The installation is on view in Seward Park in the Lower East Side through July 2019.

Paparazzi Dogs

After taking a tour of Melbourne, Sydney, Beijing, and Shanghai, the Paparazzi Dogs are in New York City! The dogmen, as they are also called, were created by contemporary artists Gillie and Marc, and are currently “taking photographs” in Greenwich Village, after having visited Brooklyn’s DUMBO. “We’re so excited that our Pap Dogs are in New York!” Gillie says on their website. “They’ve traveled the globe taking photos, and now they’ve arrived at the place that has been photographed more than anywhere else.” The Sydney-based husband and wife duo created the series of four life-sized dog sculptures in 2013 and the dogs quickly created such a buzz that celebrities such as Snoop Dogg came to have their photo taken with the dogmen. Gillie and Marc created the sculptures in hopes of raising awareness about the tragic death of the late Princess Diana, which has been blamed in part on overzealous paparazzi. Although the message behind the sculptures is serious, don’t worry, the dogmen are pretty adorable. And don’t worry: they won’t bite!