NEW YORK.- This summer, on the occasion of the Whitney's 75th anniversary, the entire museum is dedicated to Full House: Views of the Whitney's Collection at 75, a presentation drawn from the permanent collection. Not a definitive survey, Full House is principally organized around transformative moments, or “flashpoints,” in American art, and proposes a series of dynamic dialogues between works of art across all media, spanning the 20th century to the present. The exhibition is on view from June 29 through September 3, 2006.

This is one of the few times that the Breuer building has been devoted exclusively to the display of the collection. “Building on the Whitney's founding mission to support new artists and emerging art forms, the exhibition proposes an active conversation between the present and the past,” said Donna De Salvo, Chief Curator and Associate Director for Programs.

Ms. De Salvo added, "It could be argued that a permanent collection is the 'long-term memory' of a museum and this presentation acknowledges the place of history without being constrained by it." Ms. De Salvo organized this exhibition with a team of her colleagues Carter Foster, Barbara Haskell, Henriette Huldisch, and Dana Miller. Three of the Museum’s main floors are organized around concentrations of works loosely associated with Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, and Minimalism – movements represented in depth by the Whitney’s collection. These key moments in 20th century art registered broadly on an international level and ushered in a new chapter in how art produced in the United States was perceived. On each floor, works from the last and present century are exhibited alongside the "core" works, sometimes resulting in unexpected or surprising juxtapositions. By combining a range of works into a single presentation, Full House reveals the ways that these art historical categories have retained their currency and persist today as conceptual, ideological and stylistic frameworks.

The fourth floor, What You See Is What You See, is anchored by Minimalist works of the mid 1960s to early 1970s and explores ideas related to industrial production, materiality, and conceptual practices. The third floor, The Pure Products of America Go Crazy, takes Pop art as its focal point, with works from the 1960s installed within the context of a range of historical and contemporary developments, including those that address urbanism, consumerism, appropriation, and politics. The second floor, Content Is a Glimpse, is centered on art of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism was at its apex. While Abstract Expressionism left a complicated legacy, one of its enduring influences was its preoccupation with the transcendent or spiritual qualities of art, and this floor includes more recent work that shares and expands upon these ideas.

The fifth floor, Holiday in Reality: Edward Hopper, is dedicated to a large-scale presentation of works by Edward Hopper, whose legacy is intimately connected to the Whitney. The Museum’s vast collection of works by Hopper is supplemented by key loans, including such major paintings as the Art Institute of Chicago's Nighthawks (which will be on view starting October 4) and the Museum of Modern Art's New York Movie, which will be shown in a rare presentation with their preparatory drawings and Hopper's Journal entries. The mezzanine level features a selection of works from the Whitney's photography collection that suggests a connection to Hopper's painting in sensibility, subject matter, or composition. Calder’s Circus, one of the Whitney’s most beloved works, is newly installed in the Lobby Gallery.

This exhibition, while celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the museum, asserts the Whitney’s commitment to the continual and innovative display of its collection. As the museum looks ahead to a planned architectural expansion, this presentation will also serve as a necessary lab for experimentation, suggesting new perspectives on the last seventy-five years of the Whitney while flashing forward to the next important chapter in its history.