It is a glorious day when New York City’s Whitney Museum opens its doors for its incredible Biennial, which is upon us now! This year will mark the eighty-first edition of the Whitney Biennial, the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States. It will feature a staggering seventy-one artists and two collectives. This year, the exhibition is subtitled Even Better Than the Real Thing. It engages in the discourse around the role of Artificial Intelligence and its influence on us culturally and societally.
The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz, Curator, and Meg Onli, Curator at Large, with Min Sun Jeon and Beatriz Cifuentes. Iles and Onli organize the performance program, with guest curator Taja Cheek. They also organize the film program with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, Asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr., and Zackary Drucker.
To help celebrate the occasion, the Whitney Museum has tapped Los Angeles-based streetwear brand Total Luxury Spa to create and curate a capsule collection that utilizes the Biennial theme, making it accessible and cool. The brand’s graphic-driven approach works perfectly with the Even Better Than the Real Thing theme and looks great on the graphic hoodie and two graphic tees made for the exhibition. The highlight of the three pieces IMO is the black long sleeve, which reads “Even Better Than The Real Thing” down one sleeve with the artists’ names printed on the back.
The Whitney Museum 2024 Biennial 2024 will run until August 11th, 2024, so if you can, make your way down to NYC for a visit. If you can’t, consider grabbing the accompanying “catalogue,” which features 175 colour illustrations, a collaborative essay by Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli, and essays from curators and scholars on the specific themes. Whether you go in person or are ordering online, be sure to check out the cool af merch, like the Total Luxury Spa x Whitney Museum Biennial 2024 capsule or the two more collaborative drops that will come in the following weeks, all available now via the museum’s official website.