We're moving!
The Whitney is closed in preparation for the opening of our new building downtown in spring 2015.
Explore the buildingUri Aran’s installations collect objects and images, sculptural elements that are structured by the wall-mounted pedestals and worktables that provide the environment for the work. Unfolding like a theatrical storyboard, these configurations evoke fragments of narrative; standardized identification photographs dispersed within Aran’s 2014 Biennial installation suggest half-formed characters. This sense of narrative is “not necessarily the classic notion of a story with a beginning, middle, and end,” as Aran has said, but rather a more open-ended landscape that proposes multiple routes or paths through the installation.
The investigation of language and its functions is fundamental to Uri Aran’s work: “The discord of meaning in language is something I’m interested in. I don’t know if it’s because English is not my mother tongue; I see a delay of meaning. I see things as mediated—almost everything is quoted.” In his video “A to Q,” an expressive, cinematic musical performance of Bachanias Brasileiras No. 1 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) is juxtaposed with the artist’s presentation of prosaic objects, each introduced as representing a letter of the alphabet but demonstrating no discernible correlation between the objects and the letters they are meant to signify. Aran stops his recitation of the alphabet at “Q”—leaving this fundamental linguistic set incomplete. The artist’s work often hinges on such invented taxonomies, suggesting the pathos of organizing knowledge into legible systems.
Uri Aran’s work is on view in the Museum’s third floor galleries.
Academy Records and Matt Hanner
Terry Adkins
Etel Adnan
Alma Allen
Ei Arakawa and Carissa Rodriguez
Uri Aran
Robert Ashley and Alex Waterman
Michel Auder
Lisa Anne Auerbach
Julie Ault
Darren Bader
Kevin Beasley
Gretchen Bender
Stephen Berens
Dawoud Bey
Jennifer Bornstein
Andrew Bujalski
Elijah Burgher
Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna
Paravel, and Sensory Ethnography Lab
Sarah Charlesworth
Critical Practices Inc.
Matthew Deleget
David Diao
Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst
Paul Druecke
Jimmie Durham
Rochelle Feinstein
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa
Morgan Fisher
Louise Fishman
Victoria Fu
Gaylen Gerber with David Hammons,
Sherrie Levine, and Trevor Shimizu
Jeff Gibson
Tony Greene curated by Richard
Hawkins and Catherine Opie
Joseph Grigely
Miguel Gutierrez
Karl Haendel
Philip Hanson
Jonn Herschend
Sheila Hicks
Channa Horwitz
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN?
Susan Howe
Jacqueline Humphries
Gary Indiana
Doug Ischar
Carol Jackson
Travis Jeppesen
Alex Jovanovich
Angie Keefer
Ben Kinmont
Shio Kusaka
Yve Laris Cohen
Chris Larson
Diego Leclery
Zoe Leonard
Tony Lewis
Pam Lins
Fred Lonidier
Ken Lum
Shana Lutker
Dashiell Manley
John Mason
Keith Mayerson
Suzanne McClelland
Dave McKenzie
Bjarne Melgaard
Rebecca Morris
Joshua Mosley
My Barbarian (Malik Gaines, Jade Gordon
and Alexandro Segade)
Dona Nelson
Ken Okiishi
Pauline Oliveros
Joel Otterson
Laura Owens
Paul P.
taisha paggett
Charlemagne Palestine
Public Collectors
Sara Greenberger Rafferty
Steve Reinke with Jessie Mott
David Robbins
Sterling Ruby
Miljohn Ruperto
Jacolby Satterwhite
Peter Schuyff
Allan Sekula
Semiotext(e)
Amy Sillman
Valerie Snobeck and Catherine Sullivan
A.L. Steiner
Emily Sundblad
Ricky Swallow
Tony Tasset
Sergei Tcherepnin
Triple Canopy
Philip Vanderhyden
Pedro Vélez
Charline von Heyl
David Foster Wallace
Dan Walsh
Donelle Woolford
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung