We're moving!
The Whitney is closed in preparation for the opening of our new building downtown in spring 2015.
Explore the buildingWork by HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? will be screened in the second floor Film & Video Gallery, March 7–9. View the calendar for more information.
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? is an evolving collective of multi-disciplinary artists of the African diaspora who have lived and worked together, in various iterations, over the past twenty years. The name, which spells out “How Do You Say Yam in African?” plays on the fact that the yam is a common root in various African cuisines and that, of course, there is no such language as “African”—an irony the collective’s members embrace.
For the 2014 Biennial, they present a multipart film that reimagines the traditional opera to pose a central question: “What happens to the black body when it is haunted by a ‘blackness’ outside of it?” The spoken, chanted, sung, and screamed libretto (written by poet Dawn Lundy Martin) continually goes back to this question, exploring the consequences of centuries of global racial strife that are thrust upon on those born of African descent.
The narrative of the opera is abstracted, ultimately extending into an imagined future in which the self is not a static entity, but rather dissolves into ever-evolving multiplicities that resist a single, label. This dissolution of self is reflected in the original music recorded in the collective’s studio and in the highly layered, sculptural sets located in and around New York City, each of which reflect projections of the sets used in other sections of the film in order to create a confusion of linear time and space.
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