The 82nd Whitney Biennial 2026, the longest-running survey of American art, and arguably the most important; is at the Whitney Museum of American Art from March 8 – August 23, 2026. $30 with free Friday nights, Second Sundays, and 25-and-Under. 🇩🇴
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2026 (Whitney Museum of American Art, March 8–August 2026). From left to right: Emilie Louise Gossiaux, Kong Play, 2026; Emilie Louise Gossiaux, Becoming Part of the Forest 2, 2025; Emilie Louise Gossiaux, The Marriage of Hand and Paw, 2025; Emilie Louise Gossiaux, In Dreams We’ll See Again, 2025; Andrea Fraser, Untitled (I-V), 2024; Carmen de Monteflores, Four Women, 1969. Photograph by Darian DiCanno/BFA.com. © BFA 2026
Latin Art is American Art
A decade ago, the Whitney led the art world shift from a male Euro-centric perspective ~ to one that includes women, artists from around the world, and broader time scales than the traditional definitions of movements in art history. They famously noted that the biggest influence on American artists wasn’t the Europeans, it was the Mexican muralists.
This Biennial has its first Latin curator in Marcela Guerrero, a Puerto Rican with an Argentine and Ecuadorian heritage. Co-curator Drew Sawyer is American. Assistant curator Beatriz Cifuents is Spanish. 🇵🇷 🇪🇸
A Theme of Relationality
The show includes fifty-six artists, duos, and collectives whose work complements the theme of “relationality.” That’s a tricky word that can be explained as the many ways we are connected to each other in families, communities, and countries; through the technology, mythology, infrastructure, and ecology of contemporary life. The Biennial takes it a step further to consider our connections with other life forms and nature.
Connection is a good thing. Together we are strong. Alone we become part of the food chain. Physicists say we are all connected and all influencing one another in a great melting pot of energies from both life forms and things that emit energy which we don’t generally consider to be alive.
Latins are great curators for exploring connection, because we are raised with strong family connections; our cultures and mythologies are a blend of Indigenous, European, African, and Asian traditions mashed together by colonization; and we are spirituality connected in ways that might not make sense to other communities. We are natural connectors.
Studying the artists’ bios makes me think of how physicists, biologists, and Earth scientists are making discoveries that are in alignment with non-Western spiritual concepts.
All of this is relevant to the present moment in history. Globalization and technology connected the world, making it more peaceful and prosperous. Lately American leadership decided it wants to disconnect and has pursued its agenda aggressively both at home and abroad. The immediate result is more violence and more poverty.
Perhaps the unspoken theme of the Biennial is that there is no point in fighting because we are basically fighting ourselves. Make Art, Not War.
Latin Artists at the Whitney Biennial 2026
One thing to remember is that regardless of where they were born, these are all American artists.
Many of these artists’ work is inspired by the experience of being American, yet being considered an “other” by fellow Americans. Being discouraged from full participation in American life forces people to explore their heritage identities. So there is a lot of cultural memory, decolonization struggle in the work.
Leo Castañeda (1988, Cali, Colombia)is a Colombian American multimedia artist whose work blends video game design with Latin American Surrealism. Latin life is surreal. As Colombian Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez (the most famous Magical Realism author) said, “The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.” 🇨🇴
Taína H. Cruz (1998, New York City) is a New York Puerto Rican African American who at 27 years old is the youngest artist in the 2026 Whitney Biennial. 🇵🇷
Carmen de Monteflores (1993, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a 92-year old Puerto Rican American artist, writer, and psychotherapist whose work explores exile, sexuality, and cultural memory. Puerto Rico has vibrant cultural traditions that remain part of island life and are influential around the world. Puerto Ricans are Americans, with more living on the mainland than on the island, yet are often rejected. So exile and cultural memory are important aspects of Puerto Rican life. Previously overlooked, De Monteflores is a breakout star of this Biennial. This may be her Carmen Herrera moment (a Cuban woman artist who the Whitney recognized in her old age.) 🇵🇷
Ignacio Gatica (1988, Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean American artist who explores the connections between urban and social landscapes. Chileans have a unique perspective on this from their experience of the Pinochet military dictatorship of 1973-1990. Chileans who lived through that are still scarred by it. 🇨🇱
Jonathan González (1991, Queens, NYC) is an Afro-Dominican American whose practice covers Black life, colonial history, and the African Diaspora. 🇩🇴
Martine Gutierrez (1989, Berkely, California) is a Maya-Guatemalan American artist whose practice references her Indigenous roots, trans-woman identity, and Western pop culture. 🇬🇹
Kainoa Gruspe (1995, Louisville, Kentucky) is a Native Hawaiian artist whose layered paintings reference the complexities of contemporary Hawaiian life. 🪶 🇺🇸
Raven Halfmoon (1991, Oklahoma City, OK) is a Caddo Nation Native American sculptor whose practice embraces ancient Caddo ceramic traditions. 🪶 🇺🇸
Kekahi Wahi (Sancia Miala Shiba Nash and Drew K. Broderick) is a Native Hawaiian artist collective whose practice embraces Indigenous storytelling and the relationship between people and the land. 🪶 🇺🇸
Michelle Lopez (1970 Bridgeport, CT) is a Filipina American sculptor and installation artist whose practice embraces the deconstruction of post-colonial narratives. 🇵🇭
José Maceda (1917-2004 Manila, Philippines) was a renowned Filipino ethnomusicologist and avant-garde composer who studied Filipino Indigenous music starting in 1952, and used what he learned to create new music that challenges Western concepts of instrumentation and time. He is one of the few non-living artists in the Biennial. He work is brought into the exhibition by Japanese artist Aki Onda. 🇵🇭
Agosto Machado (1935, New York City) is a New York Chinese Spanish Filipino American performance artist, activist, and muse. His Biennial installation is a memoir to New York City’s counterculture community. 🇨🇳 🇵🇭 🇪🇸
Oswaldo Maciá (1960 Cartagena, Colombia) is a Colombian American sculptor who uses immersive sounds and smells to expand the definition of sculpture. His practice relates to global cultural connections through migration, trade, and trade winds. 🇨🇴
Emilio Martínez Poppe (1993, Baltimore) is a Cuban American artist whose practice revolves around architecture, social systems, and community organizing. 🇨🇺
Kimowan Metchewais (1963-2011, Alberta, Canada) was a Cree, Cold Lake First Nations Native American artist whose practice embraced Indigenous sovereignty, community, and colonial memory. 🪶 🇨🇦
Sarah M. Rodriguez (1984, Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American sculptor whose practice embraces interspecies communication and ecological relationships. 🪶
Gabriel Ruiz (1991, Los Angeles) is a Mexican American artist whose self-portraits reflect a technology distopia. 🇲🇽
Jasmin Sian (1969, Philippines) is a Filipino American artist known for transforming discarded materials into intricate lace-like compositions. 🇵🇭
Julio Torres (1987 San Salvador, El Salvador) is a Salvadoran American artist who turns comedy into performance art. 🇸🇻
Johanna Unzueta (1974, Santiago Chile) is a Chilean American artist known for drawing on her sculptures which are often related to architecture. 🇨🇱