Art can be a catalyst for architects to see the built environment through a different lens. It provides a unique opportunity to delve into the viewpoints of trained architects who have transitioned into the visual arts and artists who explore cities and their inner workings through their personal stories.
Located in New York City, the Whitney Biennial is considered the most important and longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States. Along with the Venice Biennale, it is considered one of the world's most important recurring art exhibitions. This year's theme, "Even Better Than the Real Thing," delves into concepts of identity and bodily autonomy, amplifying the voices of those historically marginalized. This includes looking at stories that study the connection between personal narratives and growing feelings of precariousness surrounding the constructed world. These are artists from this year's Whitney Biennial touching on topics related to architecture and cities.
Dora Budor
In her piece "Lifelike," Dora Budor, a graduate of Architecture from the University of Zagreb in Croatia, uses film to depict the alienation prevalent in cities consumed by gentrification and corporate aesthetics. As an interdisciplinary artist, she employs installations and interventions to create a disorienting effect, challenging the viewer's perception. Her Whitney Biennal film presents Hudson Yards, a real estate development known for its devastating gentrifying effects on Manhattan. It is captured by a shaky iPhone, leaving the viewer with a hypnotic experience of the homogeneous architecture.
Simon Liu
Through his film, Simon Liu paints a portrait of the ever-evolving Hong Kong, capturing its urban life. His practice revolves around his homeland's shifting psychological and sociopolitical landscape, employing material abstraction and the subversion of documentary cinema practices through short films, multi-channel video installations, and projection performances. In "Let's Talk," he strategically uses shots of directional signage, bridges, and buildings to demonstrate that urban imagery, symbols, and actions can carry profound political meaning. These images reflect the city's turbulent colonial past while hinting at its uncertain future and the forces that may be at work beneath the city's surface, inviting the viewer to delve deeper into the layers of his art.
Christopher Harris
An experimental filmmaker, Christopher Harris, explores the dynamics of race and class engrained in buildings and infrastructure. His film still/here displays the vast landscape of ruins and vacant lots that make up the north part of St. Louis, Missouri, a predominantly black and working-class area. He uses purely urban sights and sounds, with no people displayed in the film, to tell a story and hint at events. He uses the sights of these urban structures to convey absence and to communicate the historical forces that shaped these haunted spaces.
still/here (excerpt) from joel wanek on Vimeo.
Torkwase Dyson
Freedom is an ongoing spatial question of motion and imagination. - Torkwase Dyson
Torkwase Dyson's installation at the Whitney Biennial is not just a static piece of art but a space meant to be activated by visitors. As an interdisciplinary artist based in New York, her work is at the intersection of architecture, infrastructure, environmental justice, and abstract drawing. Her abstract works and poetic forms explore how space is perceived and negotiated by their users. She sees public infrastructure and space as creating freedom and possibility. Her work is both planned and unplanned, leaving room for user interpretation. She describes her work at the Whitney Biennial as a "monastic playground," inviting visitors to touch, sit, and experience her work tactilely. Through monumental arcs, gestures, and their play with light and shadow, these create different shapes throughout the day.
Mavis Pusey
These forms are based on buildings around the Manhattan area. I am inspired by the energy and the beat of the construction and demolition of these buildings—the tempo and movement mold into a synthesis and, for me, become another aesthetic of abstraction. - Mavis Pusey
Mavis Pusey was a Jamaican-born American abstract artist inspired by the constantly changing landscape of urban construction. She lived and worked in Chelsea, near Whitney's current location in Chelsea, and passed away in 2019. She often cited architecture and the ever-changing New York cityscape as the inspiration for her work. Her abstract paintings explore the experience of a city in a constant state of transition and the aesthetic of construction and demolition sites.
These works of art provide a gateway into the personal narratives tied to cities, architecture, and infrastructure through the diverse stories presented by these artists. This year's Whitney Biennial communicates feelings of both distrust in the built environment and awe in the unexpected. It also highlights that users can find wonder in spaces often overlooked by architects. As we engage with these narratives, we are prompted to reconsider our perceptions of urban landscapes and the human experience within them, fostering a deeper understanding of the complexities shaping our cities.
