Whitney Biennial 2014

Last year there was no Whitney Biennial, but the exhibition’s cultural presence was felt nonetheless. Alongside a sprawling New Museum show called NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, critics and curators recalled the memories and ramifications of the influential 1993 Whitney Biennial. Dubbed in shorthand as the “identity politics biennial,” the show focused explicitly on issues around gender, race, and sexuality and was summarily panned. In 2013, the ’93 Biennial became historical, lauded as a brave step in museum programming that set the tenor for much American art of the 1990s.