Advance Exhibition Schedule

Natalie Ball: bilwi naats Ga’niipci
Nov 17, 2023–Feb 2024

Natalie Ball: bilwi naats Ga’niipci is Natalie Ball's (b. 1980, Portland, Oregon) first solo exhibition at a New York museum. The exhibition presents a group of never-before-seen sculptural assemblages that deepen and destabilize understandings of Indigenous life in the United States. Drawing from various sources and including found, hunted, purchased, and gifted objects, Ball explores how the lives and meanings of materials interconnect with the artist’s sense of self through the layering of quilt tops and T-shirts; animal hides and bones; synthetic hair, shoes, beads, and newspapers, among other commercially produced items.

Ball, who is Black, Modoc, and Klamath, lives and works in her ancestral homelands in Southern Oregon/Northern California, where she serves as an elected official on the Klamath Tribes Tribal Council. The exhibition’s title, which translates to “we smell like the outside,” is a variation on an expression that Ball associates with her childhood and family in both Black and Indigenous spaces. With this phrase she highlights her artistic aims: to channel her ancestors while reflecting her lived experience, including as a future ancestor.

This exhibition will be on view in the Museum’s Lobby gallery, which is accessible to the public free of charge, as part of the Whitney Museum’s enduring commitment to support and showcase the most recent work of emerging artists.

This exhibition is organized by Jennie Goldstein, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator of the Collection, with Rose Pallone, Curatorial Assistant.

Harold Cohen: AARON
Feb 3–Jun 2024

As artificial intelligence tools for image creation enter the mainstream with text-to-image software such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, Harold Cohen: AARON examines the historical foundations of AI artmaking and provides a deep exploration of creativity, authorship, and collaboration in the context of AI.

This exhibition centers on AARON, the earliest artificial intelligence software for artmaking and one of the longest-running contemporary art projects. Conceived in the late 1960s by Harold Cohen at the University of California San Diego, AARON was further developed until his death in 2016. AARON’s various manifestations include software that drives plotting and painting machines and software to display imagery on monitors or projectors. The first and only museum to collect versions of the AARON software from different time periods, the Whitney will showcase artworks produced by AARON and highlight its drawing process live in the galleries for the first time since the 1990s. Featuring the Museum’s collection of AARON’s paintings and drawings, along with two versions of the screen-based and drawing software, Harold Cohen: AARON offers a comprehensive view of AI’s foundations and its role in artmaking today.

This exhibition is organized by Christiane Paul, Curator of Digital Art, with David Lisbon, Curatorial Assistant.

Whitney Biennial 2024
Mar 2024

The Whitney Biennial—a showcase of what's new in the world of American art—returns to the Whitney for its eighty-first installment in March 2024. Introduced in 1932 by the Museum's founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the Biennial charts developments in art of the United States and is the longest-running exhibition of its kind. To date, more than 3,600 influential and innovative artists have participated in a Whitney biennial or annual.

The 2024 Whitney Biennial is co-organized by Chrissie Iles, the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Meg Onli, the Whitney's new Curator-at-Large.

Edges of Ailey
Sept 2024

Edges of Ailey is the first large-scale museum exhibition to reflect on the life, work, and legacy of visionary artist Alvin Ailey (b. 1931, Rogers, Texas; d. 1989, New York, New York). Widely recognized for the dance company he founded in 1958, Ailey imagined and cultivated a platform for modern dance through his innovative repertoire, interdisciplinary sensibility, and support of other dancers and choreographers. Presented in the Museum’s 18,000+ square-foot fifth-floor galleries, this multifaceted presentation encompasses a multimedia exhibition, daily performance program, and scholarly catalogue to offer a richly layered experience for understanding the artist anew.

Edges of Ailey will showcase an ambitious daily program of live performances, including works from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater repertory and new commissions as well as workshops, classes, and panels. The exhibition situates Ailey within a broader social, creative, and cultural context, illuminating the artists who influenced and collaborated with him, the spaces and scenes he frequented, and the dynamic themes explored within his dances through painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, film and video, rehearsal footage, ephemera, and other archival materials.

Edges of Ailey is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in close consultation with the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with CJ Salapare, Curatorial Assistant.