Whitney Museum of American Art

Leonard A. Lauder, the Estée Lauder Companies executive and chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art, said on Tuesday that his art foundation would give the museum $131 million, the biggest donation in the Whitney’s 77-year history, Carol Vogel reports in the New York Times.  read more »

Somewhere there’s an art history graduate student sitting in Starbucks, laptop and venti decaf latte on hand, writing a thesis on the Whitney Biennial. It’s bound to be a history of arrant egos, frustrated reputations, political intrigue, curatorial missteps and temporary fame.

Part of the narrative will be an inventory of reviews. Given the negative and sometimes vitriolic criticism the Biennial has engendered over the years, it should be an entertaining and maybe hilarious roundup.  read more »

Parisian-born sculptor Louise Bourgeois’ life and career have been remarkable. Born in 1911, four years after Picasso painted Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, Bourgeois came of age during a time when “avant-garde” had yet to become the empty boast of PR men. Influenced by the murkier tangents of Surrealism, Ms. Bourgeois, who studied at the École du Louvre and was Fernand Léger’s assistant before coming to the United States in 1938, pursues a fetishistic form of sculpture that touches upon childhood fantasy and bodily decrepitude. A couple of Ms.  read more »

Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore told New York Magazine last week that the band plans to launch a traveling art show that will stop in New York, possibly at the Whitney.

"We're putting together this museum show that's utilizing all the artists that we've worked with on different covers and concepts, and that's going to happen for two or three years," said Mr. Moore, following a gig at the "Kool Thing" at Marc Jacobs's fashion show. "It's going to happen in young museums, there's one outside of Paris, there's one in Malmö, Sweden," he added.

More details about this daydream of a national tour after the jump.  read more »

The Whitney Museum of American Art will present Television Delivers People, an exhibition of video works from the 1970's to modern day projects, which examines the relationship between television and the viewer. Will Perez Hilton or a pint of Ben and Jerry's involved? Not necessarily. " The exhibition borrows its title from Richard Serra's video Television Delivers People (1973), which playfully pairs a Muzak soundtrack with a scrolling list of statements describing the manipulative strategies and motivations imbedded in television by corporate advertisers," according to the press release.

Full release after the jump.  read more »

The Whitney annouced the artists selected for their 2008 Biennial today. The show will be displayed in the entire museum (except for the fifth floor). It opens March 6, and runs through June 1, 2008.

Donna De Salvo, Associate Director for Programs and Curator, said in a press release: "The Biennial is a laboratory, a way of 'taking the temperature' of what is happening now and putting it on view. It influences our thinking on multiple levels and, for the Whitney, translates directly into the choices we make about our exhibitions and collections. In dealing with the art of the present, there are no easy assessments, only multiple points of entry. For the Whitney, and for our public, we hope the Biennial is one way in."

Artists listed after the jump.  read more »

No fewer than 20 Arden Wohl-esque headbands were spotted at the Whitney Museum’s Art Party on Wednesday, June 6.  The evening’s dress code was, after all, “hippie chic,” in honor of the museum’s current exhibition, “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era.”

Socialite Genevieve Jones looked beautiful in her daisy headband.  Man about town Paul Johnson-Calderon chose a red one (with a matching sash around his waist). to accessorize his tuxedo. The artist duo Andrew Andrew, who dress as twins à la Gilbert-and-George and Viktor-and-Rolf, sported matching ones.  “We bought them in a Japanese supermarket in Hawaii,” they boasted. 

Top model Agnyess Deyn was a standout in her canary-yellow mini-dress by London label Preen.  The Manchester, England, native recently moved to New York.  “I’m still in my honeymoon period with the city,” she said with a smile.

The actress Rosario Dawson, stunning in Max Azria (the design label sponsored the event), said she’s looking forward to Fourth of July Weekend in the Hamptons, where her buddies are throwing a big bash.  Last summer in the Hamptons, The Transom kicked it with Ms. Dawson and her madcap moms, Isabel.  This year, she said, she feels a bit out of it.  “Oh, I don’t even know all the parties,” she said.  “No one ever tells me, I’m never invited anywhere, you know that!”

But attention comic book fanatics: Ms. Dawson is the prototype for a crime-fighting heroine in a comic book named O.C.T.: Occult Crimes Taskforce.  The trade paperback of the first four issues is coming out June 13, and shortly thereafter Ms. Dawson hits the road on a book tour. Whee!

Conspicuously absent from the crowd were the art-world power brokers--curators, critics, gallerists and the like – most of whom are jetting their way to Europe and the month-long jamboree of big exhibitions there.  “There’s only a handful left,” said Whitney director Adam Weinberg of the art gang.  But, no worries, the poor artists themselves are still here, he said. Oh, phew.

Luba Azria, wife of Max, was introduced to Walis Singh Ahluwalia, the jewelry designer.  Ms. Azria, perhaps inspired by Mr. Singh Ahluwalia’s turban, decided to inform him that she’d once attended a great Eastern-meditation camp, of sorts.  “It was a totally amazing experience. It changed my life,” she said.  Mr. Singh Ahluwalia blinked and nodded blankly.

“I’m building a big, beautiful house for all my friends, brick by brick,” he later said about his gem company, House of Waris. 

At last year’s party, Moby told The Transom that he’d washed his hands of the whole affair (“I’m bored,” he’d said.)  This year, he didn’t wash his hands after peeing.  The head-shorn musician turned from the men’s room urinals and headed straight for the door.  “What I love about this party in particular is it’s this odd combination of socialites and degenerate artists,” he said.  “And they sort of rub off on each other.”

How much pleasure you derive from Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980-2005, a mid-career retrospective at  read more »

Mark Grotjahn’s large abstract drawings are so meticulously crafted and striking in effect tha  read more »

Mark Grotjahn’s large abstract drawings are so meticulously crafted and striking in effect that, l  read more »

Who’s responsible for mounting the superb exhibition devoted to the paintings, drawings, prints an  read more »

There are more important things in life than art.  read more »

There are more important things in life than art.  read more »

Come and get your hot permanent links to the sexy items of this week's column: Harlem preservationist Michael Henry Adams turned 50, but is still ready to storm Gracie Mansion or anywhere else. Yesterday, critics crawled through the Whitney Biennial. For many of them, its as if they were speaking a separate language: Blah Blah Artspeak. Wynton Marsalis sure is popular. You know who was at the Asia Society's 50th-anniversary benefit? Really very quite wealthy people. But how are they on Asia-related foreign policy?

This week's New York magazine features 10 'cute' artists from the upcoming Whitney Biennial. And it's oh so global! "In the spirit of this globalized Biennial," the magazine writes of thoese ten, "five hail from the West Coast, three from Europe, and one from West End Avenue."

We're not sure where the tenth artist is from, but we hope it's from somewhere else as excitingly global. Cincinnati?

There are artists who, despite their abundant gifts, seem destined to endure a melancholy fate, and  read more »

Unless you’re a devotee of 15th-century Netherlandish painting, chances are you’ve only  read more »

It was not to be expected that an exhibition called Landscape at the Whitney Museum of American Art  read more »

The photographer Diane Arbus (1923-1971), on the evidence of Revelations, a retrospective at the Met  read more »

Whose idea was it to host concurrent retrospectives of Romare Bearden and Isamu Noguchi at the Whitn  read more »

In dedicating an entire floor to the drawings of Ed Ruscha, the Whitney Museum of American Art demon  read more »

Illusions of Nostalgia:Ed Ruscha's Hip Absurdism  read more »

Wednesday 5th Cheap white wine and guys in Hugo Boss suits sucking in their stomachs?  read more »

Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art is asking for trouble.  read more »

Versed in Two Mediums,Seidl Imparts Beauty, Fortitude  read more »

No matter how often we're given an opportunity to revisit the paintings and drawings of Arshile Gork  read more »

Let's start with the good news first, even though it's a little stale.  read more »

You know it's been one of those weeks when the most rewarding gallery exhibition you've seen feature  read more »

Since the new breed of directors and curators in charge of our trendiest museums like to speak of na  read more »

It's both amazing and amusing to be recalled to a time-1917 or thereabouts-when Elie Nadelman (1882-  read more »

About the Sol LeWitt retrospective, which was organized bythe San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and  read more »

If you have been thinking about going to see the Barbara Kruger exhibition at the Whitney Museum of  read more »

Everyone loves the paintings of Alice Neel.  read more »

What should you do if you find a matchbook from Scores or the VIP Club in your guy's jacket pocket?1  read more »

Two months hence, we shall be treated to yet another of the Whitney Museum's 2000 Biennial exhibitio  read more »

Why is it that the Whitney Museum of American Art makes such a botch of every opportunity it is give  read more »

One of the best exhibitions of contemporary American painting on view now is a show called Intimate  read more »

As readers of this column have ample reason to know, I am not an optimist by nature.  read more »

"What's Happening at the Whitney Museum" is the title of this month's program brochure of special ev  read more »