Whitney Biennial 1973: Contemporary American Art

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York: January 10 - March 18, 1973

Exhibition Catalog Foreword:

The Whitney Museum's Annual Exhibitions of Contemporary American Art, alternating between painting and sculpture, started in 1932, shortly after the Museum was founded. This year they become biennial exhibitions, but the change does not, in effect, alter the Museum's long tradition of surveying recent developments in our painting and sculpture. It simply means that the two media are shown in the same year rather than in successive seasons. Furthermore, by turning all five floors of the Museum over to the Biennial it is possible to include almost as many works as in two of the former Annuals— each of which occupied about half the building.

The consolidation of media also obviates the increasingly shadowy distinction between painting and sculpture, and facilitates comparisons between them. We hope, as a result, that the Biennial will prove a more useful indication of current directions than the old Annuals.

As in the past, works for this exhibition are invited by the curatorial staff— not juried. Following a tradition established by the Museum's founder, no prizes are given, but a number of works from the show are customarily purchased for the Museum's permanent collection.

While the purpose of this series has always been to survey the current state of American art, it has become increasingly apparent that eyen a show of this size cannot begin to approximate a fair cross section of the creative talents and trends of our day. There are simply too many good artists in America. We have therefore chosen to concentrate increasingly — though not exclusively — on those new directions which seem to be generating the most creative excitement. And while we show the work of well-established artists as well as that of younger innovators, we try to select those whose work has grown, deepened, or changed in ways that offer more than a repetition of their past accomplishments. We try, in short, to select work which is contributing significantly to the development of our contemporary art.

John I. H. Bauer, Director