By Angela Montefinise
The Whitney Museum of American Art is celebrating Pride throughout June with events for all ages. Activities include neighborhood tours, coloring projects, film screenings, dance classes, and more! This month-long celebration is part of the Museum’s ongoing commitment to supporting LGBTQ+ artists and communities and offering an inclusive space for all to gather and explore American art.
All Pride Month activities can be found at Whitney.org/pride-2023; registration is strongly encouraged.
Pride Teens. Photo credit: Filip Wolak
The Whitney is offering free walking tours of the Museum’s neighborhood that highlight select historical sites that once provided safe spaces to find and create queer communities in the Meatpacking District. From the sites of the Hudson River piers to legendary clubs, participants are invited to consider their connection to the changing landscape of the neighborhood, as well as the city’s history.
The tours will meet outside the Whitney and will take place on Friday, June, at 6 PM; Saturday, June 10, at 1, 3, and 5 PM; Sunday, June 11, at 2 PM; Sunday, June 18, at 3 PM; and Friday, June 23, at 6 PM. Registration is required. Select walks will be offered in Spanish and ASL.
Queer Teen Night. Photo credit: Summer Surgent-Gough
For those who would prefer to explore the sites on their own, the Whitney also offers a mobile guide that can be found at Whitney.org/pride-2023.
In addition to the walking tours, highlights of the Whitney’s Pride Month events include:
Queer Teen Night, June 9, 4–7 PM: The Whitney will host a dedicated evening for LGBTQ+ youth and allies. Join the Museum’s Youth Insights Leaders, in collaboration with community partners like The Door, The Center, and Haus of Us, for an evening of artmaking, performances, dancing, giveaways, and a tour of exhibitions Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map and Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century.
Whitney Pride Month Celebration, June 10, 11 AM-6 PM: Join a full day of Pride activities for visitors of all ages outside the Museum on Gansevoort Street. Enjoy hands-on artmaking, collaborative coloring projects inspired by artist Chitra Ganesh, Queer History Walking Tours of the Meatpacking District, giveaways, and a special dance performance and workshop by the L.A.-based collective Bob’s Dance Shop. Visitors are invited to contribute to 12 large-scale coloring pages from the Queer Power Coloring Book by artist Chitra Ganesh and participate in an all-ages dance class/dance party with the Bob’s Dance Shop Experience troupe.
The Piers Project, Saturday, June 17, 1 PM and 4 PM: Inspired by the history and documentation of Manhattan’s west side piers in the 1970s and 1980s, The Piers Project, presented by The Matthew Westerby Company and Hudson Guild Theatre Company, explores the moments and movements that occurred there. This area of New York, not far from the Whitney, became a space of sexual freedom and expression in the post-Stonewall era. Visitors are invited to engage with writings and photographs from that time, imagining the world that existed around the piers to create a dance work that evokes the freedom, exuberance, anonymity, and dangers of the scene.
The Radical Joy Ball, June 22, 5-6 PM: The Whitney is teaming up with partner ADAPT Community Network for an evening celebrating inclusivity, access, and the pride of self-expression in the Museum’s theater. This event creates a space to celebrate the vibrancy of LGBTQ+ and disability pride through music, dance, and runway performances. This event is for adults 21 years of age and over.
Member Night, June 28, 7:30-10 PM: The Museum will be open late and offer evening performances, artmaking, tours, and more for Whitney Members (Did you know! If you visit the Museum more than twice a year, a Membership pays for itself). The evening—free to Members—will celebrate the work and lives of LGBTQ+ artists. For information on becoming a Member and attending this event, visit whitney.org/membership.
In addition to Pride-specific events, the Whitney Museum’s galleries will offer incredible exhibitions throughout June, including Inheritance, a show that opens on June 28 and explores how artists navigate issues of legacy and the passing of ideas across familial, historical, and creative lines. The stories are told through artworks—paintings, sculpture, video, photography, and installation—created over the last six decades and primarily new to the Whitney’s permanent collections. Most of the works included in this exhibition are either new, never-before-seen at the Museum, or works that have not been on view for years. Artists featured include Faith Ringgold, Sophie Rivera, Kara Walker, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, and Chitra Ganesa, among many others. The exhibition is organized by Rujeko Hockley, Arnhold Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
As always, visitors can see works by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, and others on view as part of the permanent collection display.
The Whitney hopes to see its neighbors visit soon!
