Whitney Focus Videos

Whitney Focus Videos subscribe on iTunes subscribe on YouTube Whitney Focus, launched in Spring 2008, is an ongoing series of original video programming produced by the Whitney. These short videos feature interviews with artists and curators, offering a unique and up-close view of Whitney exhibitions and programs. Videos can be streamed by clicking one of the links below or downloaded via iTunes, or YouTube. We encourage you to share them via Facebook and other sites using the Add This link above.
Installation of Claes Oldenburg's "Giant BLT"
Claes Oldenburg Curator Dana Miller narrates the assembling of Claes Oldenburg's Giant BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwich). Using early installation photographs as a reference, Miller guides art handlers through the placement of each of the "bacon," "lettuce," and "tomatoes" of the soft sculpture. This careful process is one of the many ways, the curator explains, in which Oldenburg's work encourages the viewer to "look at your world with fresh eyes."

Claes Oldenburg Discusses "Ice Bag-Scale C"
Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg discusses his 12-foot diameter Ice Bag-Scale C, from a series executed in 1971. Characteristic of Oldenburg's work, the prosaic object is transformed through a dramatic increase of scale. However, it is the addition of movement that produces what Oldenburg describes as the Ice Bag's "magic effect."

Lynda Benglis Discusses "Contraband"
Lynda Benglis Artist Lynda Benglis discusses the process of creating Contraband by pigmenting rubber latex and pouring it on the floor of her studio. First recognized for "spill" pieces such as this one, Benglis explains how her materials relate to nature, chemistry, and cooking.

Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT
Jenny Holzer This podcast focuses on the politics of Jenny Holzers work on view in "PROTECT PROTECT" at the Whitney Museum.. It features Kate Doyle, Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive and Laurel Fletcher, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic, University of California, Berkeley. Doyle offers a close look at Holzers "Redaction Paintings", which feature declassified government documents pertaining to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fletcher discusses "Lustmord"—a series of texts Holzer wrote in response to the systematic raping of Bosnian women by Serbian soldiers in the genocidal war in the former Yugoslavia.

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008
William Eggleston This candid interview with photographer William Eggleston was conducted by film director Michael Almereyda on the occasion of the opening of Eggleston's retrospective William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. A key figure in American photography, Eggleston is credited almost single-handedly with ushering in the era of color photography. Eggleston discusses his shift from black and white to color photography in this video as, "it never was a conscious thing. I had wanted to see a lot of things in color because the world is in color". Also included in this video are Eggleston's remarks about his personal relationships with the subjects of many of his photographs. Michael Almereyda is director of the film William Eggleston and the Real World (2005).

Corin Hewitt: Seed Stage
Corin Hewitt Artist Corin Hewitt takes up occupancy in the Whitney's Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Lobby Gallery in this ongoing installation that is part performance art, part live theater, and part meditation on ideas about still life. Redefining the notion of the artist-in-residence, Hewitt physically moves about the space and engages in the manipulation of materials, both homegrown and store-bought, questioning the autonomy of the art object through a process of its constant transmutation.

Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe
Buckminster Fuller Co-curators Dana Miller and Michael Hays discuss Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, an exhibition featuring one of the great American visionaries of the twentieth century. Utilizing his doing "more with less" credo, Fuller's designs endeavored to benefit the largest portion of humanity while consuming the minimum amount of the earth's resources. This video presents four examples of Fuller's integrated approach to the design and technology of housing, transportation, and cartography --the Dymaxion House, ca. 1930, Dymaxion Transport Vehicle, ca.1933 , Wichita House, ca. 1945, and The Fuller Projection Map, ca. 1943.

Paul McCarthy: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement
Paul McCarthy Curator Chrissie Iles discusses Paul McCarthy: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement. The installations, films, photographs, and drawings on view in this exhibition focus on a central element of McCarthy's practice: the way the body is destabilized through dislocations of architectural space. The disorientation that threads though all of the works shown here is at once formal, corporeal, and psychological.

2008 Whitney Biennial
2008 Biennial Curators	Lisa Sigal	Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR)
2008 Whitney Biennial Curators Henriette Huldisch and Shamim M. Momin share some of their ideas and insights about the process of putting together the exhibition.	Artist Lisa Sigal talks about her 2008 Whitney Biennial work, The Day before Yesterday and the Day after Tomorrow--a "painting of a painting" that extends throughout the museum.	Watch Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR)'s radio broadcast with James Chimpton, a robotic chimpanzee who conducts interviews with artists. During the 2008 Whitney Biennial, NPR hosted live radio broadcasts next door to the Museum. The public was invited to stop by and contribute to NPR's multifaceted notion of what constitutes a community.
Walead Beshty	Bert Rodriguez	Ellen Harvey
2008 Whitney Biennial artist Walead Beshty discusses his photographs of the former Iraqi embassy to the former East Germany (two nations that no longer exist) and the complex ideas behind them. He also explains why his glass sculptures have acquired multiple cracks and fissures.	Bert Rodriguez reveals what goes on inside the "white cube" of his 2008 Whitney Biennial installation in the Park Avenue Armory. Rodriguez explains how and why he offers visitors free therapy sessions.	Ellen Harvey introduces her Museum of Failure, a new installation for the 2008 Whitney Biennial consisting of an illuminated lightbox and large painting depicting a wall of mirrored frames. She discusses the "impossibility" of self-portraiture and political subject matter in relation to this work.
Fritz Haeg	Charles Long	MK Guth
Artist Fritz Haeg's project for the 2008 Whitney Biennial is Animal Estates 1.0: New York, New York. The project consists of model homes for animals (including the Beaver, Bald Eagle, and the Mason Bee among others) that once lived in the vicinity of the Whitney Museum 400 years ago.	Walks along the L.A. River Basin inspired artist Charles Long's installation of sculptures and photographs in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. His commentary details the rich birdlife he found there and describes how he uses materials from the river to make his sculptures.	For the 2008 Biennial artist, MK Guth created a participatory artwork called Ties of Protection and Safekeeping. She invites visitors to the Park Avenue Armory to answer the question, "What is worth protecting?" Visitors write their answers on strips of red flannel cloth which MK Guth weaves into a long braid that grows longer every day.
Jedediah Caesar	Omer Fast
2008 Whitney Biennial artist Jedediah Caesar describes how he created his sculpture Helium Brick aka Summer Snow from a block of industrial Styrofoam covered with layers of colored resin.	Omer Fast, winner of the 2008 Bucksbaum Award, discusses his 2008 Whitney Biennial work, The Casting (2007), a four-channel video featuring a young American army sergeant who recounts two stories--which seem to be his own anguished memories--one about dating a woman while stationed in Germany, and the other of accidentally killing a civilian in Iraq.