**updated!** Whitney Biennial Painting discussions

Whitney Biennial is the most political in decades

Dana Schutz, “Open Casket” (2016), oil on canvas, 39 x 53 inches

better whitney debacle article: Unpacking the Firestorm: Whitney Biennials black death spectacle

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-unpacking-firestorm-whitney-biennials-black-death-spectacle

Hannah Black: the painting must go

Painting on Message at the Whitney Biennial

Henry Taylor, “THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH! (2017), acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96 inches

Dana Schutz responds to the uproar around her painting (this is her real response, not the fake letter/fake news)


Kara Walker on Dana Schutz: (from her Instagram):
kara_walker_officialThe history of painting is full of graphic violence and narratives that don't necessarily belong to the artists own life, or perhaps, when we are feeling generous we can ascribe the artist some human feeling, some empathy toward her subject. Perhaps, as with Gentileschi we hastily associate her work with trauma she experienced in her own life. I tend to think this unfair, as she is more than just her trauma. As are we all. I am more than a woman, more than the descendant of Africa, more than my fathers daughter. More than black more than the sum of my experiences thus far. I experience painting too as a site of potentiality, of query, a space to join physical and emotional energy, political and allegorical forms. Painting - and a lot of art often lasts longer than the controversies that greet it. I say this as a shout to every artist and artwork that gives rise to vocal outrage. Perhaps it too gives rise to deeper inquiries and better art. It can only do this when it is seen.