AN EXHIBITION AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM ADDRESSING POLITICAL, ECOLOGICAL, AND SOCIAL CHANGE

While the traditional genre of landscape in art history has long been linked to idyllic scenes and documentary narratives of place, the works selected from the Whitney's collection for this exhibition, most of them on view for the first time at the museum, propose a much broader interpretation.

Shifting Landscapes brings together 120 works by more than 80 artists, including Firelei Baez, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jane Dickson, Teresita Fernandez, Gordon Matta-Clark, Carolina Caycedo, Guadalupe Maravilla, and Purvis Young, spanning a period beginning in the 1960s and extending to the present. A series of photographs, installations, films, videos, sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, and digital works show the effects of industrialization on the environment, address the impact of geopolitical boundaries, and shape imagined spaces as a way of questioning the concept of a “natural” world. Organized into thematic sections, these works reveal the multiple meanings underlying land and territory, highlighting how spaces shape people and vice versa.

Spanning the entire sixth floor of the museum, Shifting Landscapes is organized into thematic sections that address specific approaches. Some groupings are inspired by materials and perspectives: sculptural assemblages formed from locally sourced objects, ecofeminist approaches to land art, and the legacies of documentary landscape photography. Others are tied to specific geographies, such as the frenetic cityscapes of modern New York and the experimental film scene of 1970s and 1980s Los Angeles. Likewise, some works show how artists invent novel fantastical worlds where humans, animals, and the earth become one.

The exhibition is organized by Jennie Goldstein, Associate Curator of the Jennifer Rubio Collection; Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator; Roxanne Smith, Senior Curatorial Assistant; and Angelica Arbelaez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow, with thanks to Araceli Bremauntz-Enriquez and J. English Cook for their research support.