2012 Whitney Biennial Opens Today!

Sculpture, painting, installations, and photography—as well as dance, theater, music, and film—will fill the galleries of the Whitney Museum of American Art in the latest edition of the Whitney Biennial. With a roster of artists at all points in their careers the Biennial provides a look at the current state of contemporary art in America. This is the seventy-sixth in the ongoing series of Biennials and Annuals presented by the Whitney since 1932, two years after the Museum was founded.

The 2012 Biennial takes over most of the Whitney from March 1 through May 27, with portions of the exhibition and some programs continuing through June 10. The participating artists were selected by Elisabeth Sussman, Curator/Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney, and Jay Sanders, a freelance curator and writer who has spent the past ten years working both in the gallery world and on independent curatorial projects. Sussman and Sanders co-curated the Biennial’s film program with Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the co-founders of Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn.

The Whitney’s fourth-floor Emily Fisher Landau Galleries will become a dynamic 6,000-square-foot performance space for music, dance, theater, and other events. This is the first Whitney Biennial in which nearly a full floor of the Museum has been given over to a changing season of performances, events, and residencies.

BMW Guggenheim Lab Launches in NYC

BMW Guggenheim Lab to Launch in New York in August 2011 See the project at http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/index.php?option=com_mediastorm&view=videos&task=view&id=3

Focusing on Comfort in the City, the BMW Guggenheim Lab has launched its first of nine projects today on the border zone between the East Village and the LES. This community forum space will travel to Europe and Asia before returning to the Guggenheim Museum where the information gathered will be presented. Over the Lab’s six-year migration, there will be three distinct mobile structures and thematic cycles. Each structure will be designed by a different architect, and each will travel to three cities around the globe. The structure is open Wednesday through Sunday from 1-9 pm (with extended hours of 10am - 10pm on weekends). Looks like the East Side has found its answer to the highline... but only until October 16th!