Alfredo Jaar | Whitney Biennial 2022 | Quiet As It's Kept
Goodman Gallery congratulates Alfredo Jaar on his participation in the 2022 Whitney Biennial. Titled Quiet As It’s Kept, the exhibition presents works by 63 artists, and will be held from April 6 to September 5 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
In this installation, 06.01.2020 18.39 (2022), Alfredo Jaar meditates on the events of June 1, 2020, six days after police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old Black man. One of the many peaceful protests following Floyd’s death took place in Washington, DC’s Lafayette Square, near the White House. In order to facilitate a photo op for former President Donald Trump raising a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church adiacent to Lafayette Square, US Attorney General William Barr ordered federal forces to clear the area. They subsequently fired on the peaceful protestors with tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets. They also flew two helicopters so low to the ground that the wind created by their rotors broke tree branches and scattered debris. The militarized use of helicopters has been prohibited by international human-rights law and horrified the artist who, recalling his lived experiences in Pinochet-era Chile, created this work.
The 2022 Whitney Biennial is co-organized by David Breslin, DeMartini Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, and Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Gabriel Almeida Baroja, Curatorial Project Assistant, and Margaret Kross, former Senior Curatorial Assistant.
