SCOTT RUDD/WHITNEY MUSEUM
The Whitney Museum revealed today that the 2019 edition of its closely watched biennial will be organized by Jane Panetta, who is an associate curator at the museum, and Rujeko Hockley, an assistant curator there.
Hockley joined the museum in March from the Brooklyn Museum, where she was assistant curator of contemporary art. Her curatorial credits there included the superb “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85,” organized with Catherine Morris, which is now on view at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles through January 14. She was also involved with shows of work by Tom Sachs, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and more.
Panetta has been with the Whitney since 2010, and was part of the curatorial team that conceived “America Is Hard to See,” the museum’s exhilarating first collection show at its new home in the Meatpacking District in 2015. She has also organized “Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s (2017)” and “Mirror Cells,” with Christopher Y. Lew, the co-curator of the 2017 biennial.
“Jane and Ru are two of the most compelling and engaged curatorial voices of our moment, with broad and sensitive instincts for artistic and cultural relevance,” the Whitney’s deputy director and chief curator, Scott Rothkopf, said in a statement. “They are both passionate champions of emerging artists, while their more scholarly projects have shown keen insights about making history feel alive in the present.”