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The Museum of Modern Art announces Jack Whitten: The Messenger, the first comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the groundbreaking art of Jack Whitten (American, 1939–2018), on view from March 23 through August 2, 2025, in the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special Exhibitions. Presented solely at MoMA, the exhibition will explore the full range of Whitten’s innovative art over his nearly six-decade career, showing more than 175 works from the 1960s to the 2010s, including paintings, sculptures, rarely shown works on paper, and archival materials. Together, these works will reveal how Whitten overturned the tenets of modern art-making to become one of the most important artists of our time. Beginning his career during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Whitten was under great pressure to create directly representational art as a form of activism, yet he dared to invent new forms of abstraction and, in the process, transformed the relationship between art, memory, and society.
“Jack Whitten’s art is visionary, even prophetic,” said Michelle Kuo. “He connected painting to photography, sculpture, printmaking, music, and new technologies. He created monumental works that confront watershed moments in history, from the Civil Rights movement to the discovery of new galaxies. Whitten defied traditional boundaries between abstraction and representation, race and nation, culture and technology, individual identity and global history. He made art matter in a world in turmoil.”
Jack Whitten: The Messenger is organized by Michelle Kuo, Chief Curator at Large and Publisher, with Helena Klevorn, Curatorial Assistant to the Chief Curator at Large and Publisher, Dana Liljegren and Eana Kim, Curatorial Assistants, Department of Painting and Sculpture, David Sledge, Mellon-Marron Research Consortium Fellow, Department of Painting and Sculpture, and Kiko Aebi, former Curatorial Associate, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
Leadership support for the exhibition is provided by the Jon Stryker Endowment, the Leontine S. and Cornell G. Ebers Endowment Fund, The Black Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, and Agnes Gund through The Black Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
Major funding is provided by the Eyal and Marilyn Ofer Family Foundation.
Additional support is provided by an Anonymous donor and by Scott and Margot Ziegler.
Press Kit
Images
Portrait of Jack Whitten on Broome Street, New York, 1974. Courtesy Jack Whitten Estate and Hauser & Wirth.
Portrait of Jack Whitten with Pink Psyche Queen (1973), ca. 1975 © Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth.
Jack Whitten. Atopolis: For Édouard Glissant. 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 8 panels, overall 124 1/2 × 248 1/2″ (316.2 × 631.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Sid R. Bass, Lonti Ebers, Agnes Gund, Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley, and Daniel and Brett Sundheim. © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by Jonathan Muzikar.
Detail of Jack Whitten. Atopolis: For Édouard Glissant. 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 8 panels, overall 124 1/2 × 248 1/2″ (316.2 × 631.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Sid R. Bass, Lonti Ebers, Agnes Gund, Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley, and Daniel and Brett Sundheim. © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by Jonathan Muzikar.
Jack Whitten. Black Monolith VII, Du Bois Legacy: For W.E. Burghardt. 2014. Acrylic on canvas. 84 × 63 × 4″ (213.4 × 160 × 10.2 cm). Collection of Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III. © Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth. Photographer: Genevieve Hanson.
Jack Whitten. The Afro American Thunderbolt. 1983/1984. Black mulberry wood with copper plate and nails, 25 × 9 × 10″ (63.5 × 22.9 × 25.4 cm). Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth. © Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth, Photo by Genevieve Hanson.
Jack Whitten. Liquid Space I. 1976. Acrylic slip on paper, 20 5/8 x 20 5/8″ (52.4 x 52.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchased with funds provided by Dian Woodner in honor of The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art. © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by Peter Butler.
Jack Whitten. Mirsinaki Blue. 1974. Acrylic on canvas, 62 1/8 × 72 1/8″ (157.8 × 183.2 cm). Collection of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. Gift of Leonard and Ruth Bocour. © 2024 Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.
Jack Whitten. Siberian Salt Grinder. 1974. Acrylic on canvas, 6’8″ x 50″ (203.2 x 127 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Nina and Gordon Bunshaft Fund and The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art. © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by John Wronn.
Jack Whitten. Four Wheel Drive. 1970. Acrylic on canvas, 98 1/4 × 98 1/4″ (249.6 × 249.6 cm). Private collection. © Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth.
Detail of Jack Whitten. Four Wheel Drive. 1970. Acrylic on canvas, 98 1/4 × 98 1/4″ (249.6 × 249.6 cm). Private collection. © Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth, Photo by Genevieve Hanson.
Jack Whitten. Light Sheet I. 1969. Acrylic on canvas, 112.50 x 114″ (285.75 x 289.56 cm). Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth. © Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth, Photo by Genevieve Hanson.
Jack Whitten. NY Battle Ground. 1967. Oil on canvas, 60 × 83 7/8″ (152.4 × 213 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase and gift of Sandra and Tony Tamer, Agnes Gund, Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin, and Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida. © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by Jonathan Muzikar.
Jack Whitten. Birmingham 1964. 1964. Aluminum foil, newsprint, stocking and oil on board, 16 5/8 x 16″ (42.2 x 40.6 cm). Collection of Joel Wachs. © Photo by John Berens, Courtesy the Jack Whitten Estate and Hauser & Wirth.