Installation image from Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art: Pope.L, Eating the Wall Street Journal, 2000.
A few days ago, the Whitney Museum announced its list of 63 artists, duos, and collectives that will be exhibiting in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. The 2017 edition of the show is the museum’s first biennial in its new location, and the 78th annual/Biennial exhibition to date.
The exhibition is co-curated by Christopher Y. Lew of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and former MoMA PS1 curator Mia Locks. Among the 63 artists represented, a few have had (or currently have) a presence in Texas:
Harold Mendez was a 2013–2015 Core fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and has work on view in Project Row House’s current exhibition Round 45: Local Impact.
Occupy Museums hosted a Debtfair exhibition a year ago at Art League Houston.
Pope.L was included in Valerie Cassel Oliver’s 2012 exhibition Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
New Mexico-based artist Puppies Puppies, (b. Dallas) has shown with Kevin Rubén Jacobs’ more than once, including KRJ’s project PUSHKIN & GOGOL at Art City Austin Art Fair this past spring.
For a list of all participating artists, please go here.
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William’s first exhibition in Houston was at DiverseWorks. See below from Wikipedia.
In 2001 The National Endowment for the Arts advisory renew panel granted Pope.L $42,000 in financing for a traveling retrospective called William Pope.L: eRacism. Shortly after announcing the award, the acting chairman, Robert S. Martin, rescinded funding for the grant. Joel Wachs, then president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, stated in the December 21st issue of The New York Times:
“It is important, particularly in light of what I would consider an attack on freedom of expression, to stand firm. We want this exhibition to occur; we want other funders to step forward; we don’t want the N.E.A.’s decision to be something that has the effect of stopping what I think is going to be an important exhibition of art.”
The Warhol Foundation, in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and the LEF Foundation provided $50,000 in funding for the traveling retrospective to tour the United States. eRacism exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art; Diverse Works Artspace, Houston, 2003; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Oregon, 2003; and Artists Space, New York, 2003 .
The catalog “William Pope.L: Friendliest Black Artist in America” was produced by curator Mark Bessire in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition.