NEW YORK.- Eighty-one artists are participating in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, which opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, on March 6, and runs through June 1, 2008. Installations and performances organized by the Whitney and Art Production Fund,will also be presented in association with Park Avenue Armory (67th Street) from March 6-23.

Since its founding in 1932, the Biennial has evolved into the Whitney’s signature exhibition as well as the most important survey of the state of contemporary art in the United States today. The exhibition will occupy the entire Museum, with the exception of the fifth floor, which is devoted to the permanent collection. For the first time, the Biennial will expand beyond the Museum’s Breuer building into Park Avenue Armory’s monumental Drill Hall and historic period rooms, creating an opportunity to present works that could not be accommodated within the Whitney’s walls and remaining true to the fluid, interactive way in which these works were conceived.

The 2008 Biennial is curated by Henriette Huldisch, Assistant Curator at the Whitney, and Shamim M. Momin, Associate Curator at the Whitney and Branch Director and Curator of the Whitney Museum at Altria, and overseen by Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s Chief Curator and Associate Director for Programs. Three advisors worked with the curatorial team throughout the process: Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem; Bill Horrigan, Director of the Media Arts department at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University; and Linda Norden, independent curator and writer.

Donna De Salvo noted, “The Biennial is a laboratory, a way of ‘taking the temperature’ of what is happening now and putting it on view. It influences our thinking on multiple levels and, for the Whitney, translates directly into the choices we make about our exhibitions and collections. In dealing with the art of the present, there are no easy assessments, only multiple points of entry. For the Whitney, and for our public, we hope the Biennial is one way in.”

History - The prototype for the Biennial debuted soon after Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney opened the Whitney Studio Club in Greenwich Village in 1918. At a time when American artists were struggling to free themselves from the prevailing art and culture of Europe, the Studio Club was an alternative space where artists could gather and display their works in annual survey exhibitions. These small, early versions of the Biennial created the first major public forum for contemporary American art, as well as a means for the advancement and assimilation of modernism into the predominantly realist tradition of American art. Many artists who would later be counted among the most important figures in 20th-century American art had their first exhibition opportunities at the Whitney, including Milton Avery, Philip Guston, Edward Hopper, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

In 1931 the Whitney Museum of American Art opened to the public, and the first Whitney Biennial was introduced in 1932. The 2008 Biennial will be the 74th in the series of Whitney Annual and Biennial exhibitions held since 1932, the same year that the Museum established an acquisition fund for purchases from each Biennial exhibition. The early Biennials alternated painting with sculpture and works on paper; selections were made, at first, by the artists and then by curators. In 1937, the program was changed to Annual exhibitions of separate media (painting displayed in the fall, and sculpture and other media in the spring). In 1973 the current program of Biennials of combined media was instated.

The 2008 Biennial catalog includes essays by Biennial curators Henriette Huldisch and Shamim M. Momin, as well as a specially commissioned essay by Rebecca Solnit, a writer, historian, and activist. In one section of the book, short texts accompany reproductions of each artist’s work; other sections present documentation of the artists’ diverse methods and practices as represented in the Biennial exhibition. The book, designed by Miko McGinty, will be distributed by Yale University Press.

Armory Hours and Further Information - The Park Avenue Armory is located at 643 Park Avenue, New York City. Park Avenue Armory hours are from 12 to 8 p.m. daily; earlier and later for performances and events. Admission is free. Space at events in limited; admission is on a first come, first-served basis, unless otherwise noted. For information, please visit www.whitney.org/biennial.