Jane Dickson
in ‘Shifting Landscapes’, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1 November 2024 – January 2025
Jane Dickson, ‘Heading in - Lincoln Tunnel 3’, 2003. Oil on Astroturf, 33 × 46 × 2 3/8in. (83.8 × 116.8 × 6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Eve Ahearn and Joseph Ahearn 2017.275. © Jane Dickson
‘Shifting Landscapes’, an exhibition at Whitney Museum of American Art, explores how evolving political, ecological, and social issues motivate artists’ representations of the world around them. While the art historical genre of landscape has long been associated with picturesque vistas and documentary accounts of place, the artworks gathered in this exhibition suggest a more expansive interpretation.
The 120 works by more than eighty artists – including Jane Dickson, Firelei Báez, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Gordon Matta-Clark – depict the effects of industrialisation on the environment, grapple with the impact of geopolitical borders, and give shape to imagined spaces. Drawn from the Whitney’s collection, this exhibition features works from the 1960s to the present, most of which are on view at the Museum for the first time. Together, these works bring concepts of land and place into focus, foregrounding how we shape and are shaped by the spaces around us.