Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century
Apr 19–Aug 2023
Josh Kline, In Stock (Walmart Worker’s Arms), 2018 (detail). 3D-printed sculpture in acrylic-based photopolymer resin, Walmart shopping cart, custom cardboard boxes, 39 × 26 × 44 in. Courtesy 47 Canal, New York and Modern Art, London. Photograph by Joerg Lohse
Josh Kline (b. 1979, Philadelphia, PA; lives and works in New York, NY) is one of the leading artists of his generation. Kline is best known for creating immersive installations using video, sculpture, photography, and design to question how emergent technologies are changing human life in the twenty-first century.
In spring 2023, the Whitney will present the first U.S. museum survey of the artist's work. Kline often utilizes the technologies, practices, and forms he scrutinizes—digitization, data collection, image manipulation, 3D printing, commercial and political advertising, productivity-enhancing substances—aiming them back at themselves. Some of his most well-known videos use early deep fake software to speculate on the meaning of truth in a time of post-truth propaganda. At its core, Kline’s prescient practice is focused on work and class, exploring how today’s most urgent social and political issues—climate change, automation, disease, and the weakening of democracy—impact the people who make up the labor force.
The exhibition will survey over a decade of the artist’s work, including new installations and moving image works that address the climate crisis. Presented for the first time at the Whitney, these new science-fiction works approach the hotter, more dangerous future on the horizon from the perspective of essential workers who will inevitably be left to pick up the pieces. In an era defined by escalating crises, Kline’s work offers a visceral warning and calls for a more human future.
This exhibition is organized by Christopher Y. Lew, former Nancy and Fred Poses Curator at the Whitney and current Chief Artistic Director at the Horizon Art Foundation, with McClain Groff, Curatorial Project Assistant.
Generous support for Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century is provided by Judy Hart Angelo and the Whitney’s National Committee.
Major support is provided by Candy and Michael Barasch, The Hartland & Mackie Foundation, Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins, and Jackson Tang.
Significant support is provided by an anonymous donor.
Additional support is provided by The Cowles Charitable Trust, Ashley Leeds and Christopher Harland, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Laura Rapp and Jay Smith, and the Stanley and Joyce Black Family Foundation.