OPEN DOORS
OPEN DOORS
Whitney Biennal 2024: Even better than the real thing
In this summer edition, the Whitney Museum invited the Mexican community to explore the Biennial with a Spanish-language tour led by the Mexican educator from Oaxaca, Viridiana García Choy. This opportunity was particularly special as the tour included people of all ages, from children to adults. During the tour, participants had the opportunity to experience modern art and enjoy the final days of this unique exhibition. The eighty-first edition of the Whitney Biennial, the longest-running contemporary art survey in the U.S., features seventy-one artists and collectives addressing pressing contemporary issues. Titled Even Better Than the Real Thing, the exhibition highlights how Artificial Intelligence complicates our understanding of reality and examines the political and legal rhetoric surrounding gender and authenticity, which perpetuates transphobia and restricts bodily autonomy.
About Open Doors:
Open Doors is an outreach initiative of the Mexican Cultural Institute that aims to create alliances with community organizations, museums, and cultural institutions in New York to bring the Mexican community closer to the city’s most emblematic cultural centers by giving free access to concerts and cultural events, as well as provide guided tours in Spanish for a number of permanent and temporary exhibitions.
The first edition began in 2017 with the exhibition "Cristóbal de Villalpando: Mexican painter of the Baroque" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and continued in 2018 with group visits to the exhibition "Painted in Mexico," also at The Met, and later with the exhibition “Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay” at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Thus far, Open Doors has approached 28 communitarian organizations and has given access to more than 400 people, from kids to senior citizens.
With a general survey given at the beginning of each visit during the pilot project, it was determined that for 80 percent of the participants this was the first time visiting a museum. Additionally, studies have shown that only 9 percent of museum’s visitors in the US are from Latino heritage. These numbers show the urgency of a program that addresses these issues.
