Artists Among Us

The neighborhood that the Whitney now occupies once provided a place to find and create queer community. This minisode pays tribute to the sites where people seeking sexual freedom once gathered to connect, relax, party, and organize. Minisode guest: Camilo Godoy, Whitney Educator.

For more about the queer history of the Meatpacking District, check out the full audio tour: https://whitney.org/audio-guides/94 

“They are watching, they show us, they embody, they personify the inanimate that our modern culture often forgets is constantly witnessing us.” In this minisode Rose B. Simpson discusses Counterculture, five watchful figures on view on the Whitney's Floor 5 terrace. Minisode guest: Rose B. Simpson.

View these artworks and access the transcript of this conversation on the Whitney's audio guide: https://whitney.org/audio-guides/90 

"The earliest computer interfaces always had blackness as a sort of basis of what could be done on a computer." In this minisode American Artist considers the inception of the computer interface and asks how that origin story has shaped computation today. For whom were computers created? What purpose do they serve? Minisode guest: American Artist.

View Mother of All Demos III and access the transcript of the conversation: https://whitney.org/collection/works/65698 

Is Day’s End (2014–21) an anti-monument for our time? In this episode, we return to the sculpture itself: how it makes meaning, how it fits into the surrounding environment, and what public art tells us about freedom and power. Hosted by Carrie Mae Weems. Episode guests (in order of appearance): Glenn Ligon, Kellie Jones, Tom Finkelpearl, Mabel O. Wilson, Adam Weinberg, Ken Lum, An-My Lê, Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt, Elegance Bratton, Stefanie Rivera, Curtis Zunigha. 

Anchored in the Gansevoort Peninsula and reaching out into the Hudson River, Day’s End (2014–21) was designed to be permanent. But for hundreds of years, the site has been in constant flux. In this episode, architects, environmentalists, Lenape elders, and artists inform some of the ways in which the many people connected to this place endeavor to keep it alive. Hosted by Carrie Mae Weems. Episode guests (in order of appearance): Luc Sante, Catherine Seavitt, Adam Weinberg, Jessamyn Fiore, Laura Harris, Kellie Jones, Glenn Ligon, Bernice Rosenzweig, Eric Sanderson, Paul Gallay, Pete Malinowski, Curtis Zunigha, George Stonefish, Alan Michelson, Guy Nordenson, Bill T. Jones. 

A vibrant Queer community inhabited Manhattan’s Meatpacking District when Gordon Matta-Clark created a sculpture by carving into Pier 52 on the Hudson River. This episode recalls a golden age when sex, art, and creativity converged on the waterfront in the years prior to the AIDS crisis in New York City. Hosted by Carrie Mae Weems. Episode guests (in order of appearance): Andrew Berman, Betsy Sussler, Efrain Gonzalez, Paul Gallay, Jonathan Weinberg, Laura Harris, Egyptt LaBeija, Tom Finklepearl, Glenn Ligon, Randal Wilcox, archival recording of Alvin Baltrop, Luc Sante, Elegance Bratton, Stefanie Rivera, Catherine Seavitt. 

How did the artist Gordon Matta-Clark transform a dilapidated shipping pier into a “cathedral of light”? In this episode, we trace the decline of Manhattan’s formerly flourishing meat markets and waterfront industries. Amid the decay, Matta-Clark spotted the potential for beauty. Hosted by Carrie Mae Weems. Episode guests (in order of appearance): Betsy Sussler, Jonathan Weinberg, Jane Crawford, Andrew Berman, Tom Finkelpearl, Adam Weinberg, Laura Harris, Florent Morellet, Catherine Seavitt, Glenn Ligon, Jessamyn Fiore, John Jobaggy, Alan Michelson, George Stonefish, Curtis Zunigha, Eric Sanderson, Luc Sante. 

Our inaugural episode introduces David Hammons’s Day’s End (2014–21). As we discuss the project’s origins and site-specific nature, the layered social and cultural histories of the site begin to unfold. Hosted by Carrie Mae Weems. Episode guests (in order of appearance): Bill T. Jones, Glenn Ligon, Adam Weinberg, Tom Finkelpearl, Kellie Jones, Luc Sante, Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt, Betsy Sussler. 

The Whitney Museum of American Art presents Artists Among Us, a podcast about American art and culture. In keeping with the Whitney’s mission, collection, and programming, Artists Among Us considers the complexities and contradictions that have shaped the United States we experience today. Hosted by Carrie Mae Weems. Episode guests (in order of appearance): Kellie Jones, Glenn Ligon, Curtis Zunigha, John Jobaggy, Efrain Gonzalez, Catherine Seavitt.