The Whitney Museum of American Art has appointed two curators with very different profiles to direct the 2024 Biennale. Most recently, he was Director and Curator of the Underground Museum in Los Angeles.
Museum director Adam D. Weinberg said he was impressed by the fact that Iles and Onri’s “chemistry is great.” Ills is in her 60s and Onri is in her 30s.
“Hearing them talking together is absolutely mesmerizing,” Weinberg said. “I think this biennale gives us the opportunity to observe the results of a really great conversation.”
Iles joined the museum in 1997, focusing on film and video. It will be her third Biennial where she co-curated the 2004 edition and her 2006 edition. Scott Rothkopf, chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, has been working hard to find in-house candidates for the Biennale and said, “We loved the idea of inviting someone to this iconic exhibition.” increase.
“We moved downtown. The art world has changed, but so has Clichy,” continued Rothkopf. He pointed to Iles’ latest exhibition.Mountain/time,” Held at the Aspen Museum of Art this summer, it explored the geography of Indigenous peoples and blacks. This is an example of her changing interests.
According to Rothkopf, her ongoing dialogue with Iles, working with highly contemporary artists, and her deep knowledge of the history of black film and video made her an ideal collaborator.
Prior to the Underground Museum, Onri was at ICA Philadelphia, wheretime for people of colorin 2019 and co-curated projects such as the 2021 retrospective of video and performance artist Ulysses Jenkins. In 2021, she became the first winner of Figure Skating Awards. The award was given by Art Her Space, co-founded by Virgil Her Abloh to promote racial justice in the arts.