The artists in the 2000 Biennial, the seventieth in the
Whitney Museums signature series, were selected after a
nationwide search. The more than two hundred works are
in a variety of media, from painting, sculpture, and
installation art to film and video selections and Internet art.
The exhibition opens on March 23, 2000, and runs in its
entirety through June 4, 2000.
For the first time in Biennial history, the exhibition was
curated by a group of outside experts working across the
country, under the guidance of Whitney Museum director
Maxwell L. Anderson. In addition to being one of the largest
Biennial exhibitions to date, it is also one of the Whitney
Museums most international, with twenty-one artists born
outside the United States.
Internet art makes its debut at the Whitney Museum in the
2000 Biennial. The nine sites in the Biennial represent a
broad range of approaches to Internet art, an aesthetic
diversity that mirrors the vitality and versatility of the
medium. The sites range from those that consist almost
exclusively of text to others that are collages of images and
sound.
The Internet Art Gallery within the exhibition allows visitors
to explore the websites in a large projection format. The
sites can also be viewed on a bank of computers located in
the Robert J. Hurst Family Gallery and accessed through
the Internet Art page.
The cinematic program, historically one of the strongest
sections of the Biennial since its inception in the late
1970s, continues to offer evidence of the central position of
film and video in the contemporary art world. The program
for the 2000 Biennial includes works created in the last
three years by twenty-seven artists. They provide a
multifaceted portrait of contemporary America and popular
culture from the 1950s to the present day. The screening
schedule is loosely arranged by themes, and each work is
screened once a week in the Whitney Museums Kaufman
Astoria Studios Film & Video Gallery.
An updated version of the 2000 Biennial cinematic
screening schedule, including any announced schedule
changes, is also available online on the Calendar. Consult
the Calendar to confirm dates and screening times.
The Biennial Voices audio guide, a first for a Whitney
Biennial, provides an insiders view of the exhibition.
Recorded interviews with the artists, artist statements, and
even original recordings offer listeners an intimate
connection to the creative process of contemporary art.
Biennial Voices was produced by Antenna Audio and uses
new random-access MP3 digital hand-held players.
The 2000 Biennial Exhibition was organized by:
Maxwell L. Anderson, Director, Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York;
Michael Auping, Chief Curator, Modern Art Museum
of Fort Worth, Texas;
Valerie Cassel, Director, Visiting Artists Program,
The School of The Art Institute of Chicago;
Hugh M. Davies, Director, Museum of Contemporary
Art, San Diego;
Jane Farver, Director, List Visual Arts Center at MIT,
Cambridge, Massachusetts;
Andrea Miller-Keller, independent curator, based in
Hartford, Connecticut;
Lawrence R. Rinder, Director, CCAC Institute,
California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco
and Oakland
Mr. Rinder is also the newly appointed Anne and
Joel Ehrenkranz Curator of Contemporary Art at the
Whitney Museum of American Art.
Tickets for the 2000 Biennial are $10 for adults and $8 for
senior citizens and students with valid ID. Children under
12 and Whitney Museum members are admitted free of
charge. The Biennial Voices audio guide is free with
admission. Tickets for the cinematic program alone can be
purchased for $5; screenings are free with the full price of
admission.
The richly illustrated 2000 Biennial Exhibition catalogue
features more than 150 vibrant illustrations accompanied
by texts on the work of each artist. In addition, a valuable
reference section at the back of the book offers
biographical, bibliographical, and exhibition data on each
Biennial participant. Whitney Museum director Maxwell L.
Anderson introduces the catalogue with a detailed history of
the Whitneys signature exhibition series. Designed by the
award-winning designer J. Abbott Miller at Pentagram, the
book is published by the Whitney Museum of American Art
and distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Significant support for the 2000 Biennial Exhibition has
been provided through an endowment established by Emily
Fisher Landau and Leonard A. Lauder.
Additional funding has been provided by The Brown
Foundation, Inc., Houston, the National Committee of the
Whitney Museum of American Art, the Whitney
Contemporaries, Melva Bucksbaum, The Greenwall
Foundation, France Telecom North America, and Reuters
America.
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