Drew Sawyer and Marcela Guerrero. Photo by Bryan Derballa.
According to Whitney director Scott Rothkopf, “I see the Biennial as an engine that moves the whole museum forward,” as he stated to the New York Times. “[Guerrero and Sawyer] are both fantastic talent scouts who think broadly and are able to synthesize really interesting strands of contemporary art.”
Guerrero arrived to the Whitney from LA’s Hammer Museum as an assistant curator, and the museum’s first curator specializing in Latinx art, in 2017. She was promoted in 2023 after organizing the 2022 exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria,” which the institution described as “the first scholarly exhibition focused on Puerto Rican art to be organized by a large US museum in nearly half a century.”
Sawyer replaced longtime photo curator Elisabeth Sussman in July 2023. Among the exhibitions he curated at the Brooklyn Museum were solo shows of Liz Johnson Artur, Jimmy DeSana, and Garry Winogrand. His last exhibition for the institution was “Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines,” which he co-organized with art historian Branden Joseph. His first show for the Whitney, a solo exhibition of emerging photographer Mark Armijo McKnight, opens August 24.
Inaugurated in 1973, the Whitney Biennial is considered one of the bellwether exhibitions of contemporary art. It is also a major attendance driver for the museum. Guerrero and Sawyer are said to be considering climate change and sustainability as themes for their iteration, but have not yet officially committed to the concepts.
“A lot could happen in the next two years—we have a presidential election coming up,” Sawyer told the Times. “We are all thinking about that and what the future could hold.”
