For images of artwork discussed in this post, click here. The first thing I thought as I walked through the Whitey Biennial was—splintered. The work is not just reflection of what is falling apart, however, but also provides examples of how we merge. These examples investigate how to merge selves, humanity with technology, and identities across differences. The artwork on view reveals histories repeating, cycles of destruction, and the repurposing, reclaiming, and remembering how materials are used and manipulated. The exhibition explores the human body: as something soft, existing in space, doubled, and the impact that time, culture, class, and relationships have.


The themes are prevalent in the ceramics in the exhibition. There is not a huge amount of clay. Out of the fifty-six artists, duos, and collectives included, I counted five who have clay as a major component of the work. The ceramic work is spread throughout the two floors of the Biennial and although sparse, is consistent, and constant within the themes that I found threaded through the curation. 


Kamrooz Aram’s work caught my eye. The installation includes a beautiful painted wooden screen, a walnut shelf with ceramic pots and painted design, a painting that echoes the designs of the other two pieces, and lastly a mixed media piece on linen that includes illustrations of two pots. All works are installed on a platform with a monochromatic mural painted on the wall behind. The work reflects the splintering that happens when our craft and art becomes something that someone with expertise classifies as merely decorative. How the objects that have had power and use are neutered through classification as decoration. That objects of utility and home are not to be valued in the same way as objects of mass production and disposal. This causes a rift between expertise and experience, storytelling that is not connected to the roots of origin, and one that leaves the artist and their identity something that can be devalued through definitions that are not their own. Aram’s installation feels like home with all the objects included that are beautiful, useful, and ideally both.


Raven Halfmoon’s work provides a path to and through the Biennial. On my visit I walked the Highline to get to the Whitney and came upon “West Side Warrior” on the way. This piece is a reclamation of the classical form of the bust, of Western themes, and of the power of indigenous women. The viewer can stand with the sculpture and see the Whitney behind. As one continues to the museum “The Guardians” greets you at the entrance. “Sun Twins” is installed on the sixth floor window. All three of these sculptures are working to reclaim ancestral craft and the acknowledgement of the seeds that contemporary art and craft grow from. The figures are all direct, stand tall, and look to the horizon. They are both a reminder and a presence that represents the history that some in this country continue to deny. The size, surface, and boldness of Halfmoon’s work declares the need to address history firmly in the present.


CFGNY is a collective including Daniel Chew, Ten Izu, Kirsten Kilponen, and Tin Nguyen and I found their installation “Continuous Fractures Generating New Yields” one of the most delightful to watch visitors engage with. The wooden structure covered in polyethylene sheeting can be walked around and into with windows that allow for peeks of mirrors, porcelain casts of negative space, and stuffed animals. I saw people checking their hair and make-up in the mirrors, squatting to see the stuffed animals through breaks in the sheeting, and peeping the ceramic forms through slots and the windows that make them feel like they are installed in a home. Again, questions of value, utility, disposal, and continuity are brought to light in this work.


Emilie Louise Gossiaux, “Kong Play” is a fabulous installation of one-hundred acrylic painted ceramic Kongs, the dog toy that can be filled with treats and is mostly indestructible. They are a colorful delight in comparison to some of the other works on the fifth floor that deal with bodies in different ways and deal more with death and the loss of bodies through war, colonization, and other atrocities. The ceramic kongs are paired with drawings of Gossaiux with their late guide dog that investigate the connection between the two. The kongs are not identical to those mass produced and are reminiscent of canopic jars. The kongs were made as the guide dog, London’s health began to deteriorate so maybe they are representative of something created to provide for the next life and many more beyond. Ceramic is after all a material that lasts long beyond the bodies that craft the pottery they are made from and how many of us that have lived with animals in our lives do not want to imagine them in the afterlife with all the kongs their hearts desire.


Young Joon Kwak’s, “Divine Dance of Soft Revolt" is not ceramic, but resin, glitter, wax pigment, mirrored glass, and steel. I connect this work to clay as Kwak uses traditional materials and processes in ways that address contemporary subjects and this piece for me was a standout. It is composed of fragmented cast body parts of members of the queer and trans community in Los Angeles installed on fishing wire in a stunning spiral that begins with a platform heel and snakes upward to arms reaching toward the sky. Along with the sculptural forms an audio component contributes to the dazzling atmosphere of the installation. The flash as I walked by drew me in and the glitz is paired with the imprint of bodies within. Even though the materials are solid, I wrote in my notebook as I walked through the installation, “the revolt has to be soft because our bodies are soft and hurt so easily.” The fragility of humanity is clear in this piece and in this section of the exhibition. The works surrounding the installation investigate the plight of humanity on an individual level and in relation to nature, each other, and the history of colonization. Although some powerful work, none quite achieve the brilliant expanse of celebration, joy, humanness, and grief that Kwak’s does.


Erin Jane Nelson’s installation includes twenty-three pieces that are ceramic combined with pin-hole photography. Many are installed on the wall and the ceramic acts as frames for the photographs. What I did not realize at first is that the sculptural ceramic forms are also pinhole cameras! I love the pairing of the haunting photos within the playful ceramic frames. These are objects of remembrance, but what are we remembering, and are we remembering clearly? The distortion of the pinhole cameras and the odd shapes and decoration of the frames combined with the creature-like forms of the camera/sculptures create a nostalgic absurdity. A remembrance of childhood monster cartoons, decorated upholstery, and playing outside.


There are a few other stellar pieces that really impacted me as I experienced the Biennial, and that I think are linked to the types of connections that are necessary to do any kind of community based process like ceramics. José Maceda and Ani Onda Ugnayan, a multichannel sound installation that recreates a composition created for twenty radios and that was played across Manila in 1974 in partnerships with radio stations creating a musical experience that expanded across the city. Mariah Garnett, “Songbook” a video that documents the process of putting on a production of a never performed opera that was written by the artist's great aunt. The video illustrates how we create small gestures out of notes and sound. How an arm or finger moves. How creatives are connecting through music and technology (some of the musicians playing across zoom from different locations). It expresses the power of life, family, and how art traverses countries, boundaries of self, and loss. The commitment to collective creation, the strength and challenge in co-creation, and the complicated histories that map access, value, and consumption across time, culture, and class is inherent in these pieces as it is in the ceramic pieces discussed already.


The intentionality of the pairing, installation, and combination of artists included in the Biennial is incredible and I would attend if you are able. A quote from the Whitney’s Press Release that I found to be true, “A central thread throughout Whitney Biennial 2026 is the question of what it means to be “in relation.” From familial and societal ties to geopolitical and interspecies relationships, the exhibition considers how connection is shaped, constrained, or enabled by the systems we move within.” The Biennial provides a reflection and an antidote to the splintering of the world right now. 


The Whitney Biennial 2026 is co-organized by Whitney curators Marcela Guerrero, the DeMartini Family Curator, and Drew Sawyer, the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography with Beatriz Cifuentes, Biennial Curatorial Assistant, and Carina Martinez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow and is on view March 8–August 23, 2026.