The 1993 Whitney Biennial: Artwork, Framework, Reception

This article examines the 1993 Whitney Biennial, its focus on identity politics, and the exhibition’s position within the methodological debates between Art History and an interdisciplinary Cultural Studies. It identifies where and how the voice of the exhibition came to be defined and observes the relations between the institutional framework, the curatorial agenda, and what the art itself performed. With emphasis on the artworks of Andrea Fraser, Renée Green, and Daniel J. Martinez, I argue that contemporaneous critical reception missed the Biennial’s art historical contribution, which highlighted artists synthesizing historically incompatible modes of practice, and bringing identity politics to bear on institutional critique and conceptual art.