Hyundai Motor Company and the Whitney Museum of American Art have announced a new 10-year partnership that enables artists to test their aspirations and incubate their creativity. Hyundai Motor will support an annual commission located on the museum’s expansive fifth-floor terrace in addition to supporting the Whitney Biennial.
The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Whitney is located at 99 Gansevoort St. in Manhattan.
The newly imagined outdoor exhibition project, the Hyundai Terrace Commission, offers an innovative platform for artists to experiment, respond to the space and the neighborhood, and showcase their work to the world. Envisioned by Renzo Piano, the architect of the Whitney building in New York City’s Meatpacking District, and originally coined the ‘Test Platform,’ the museum’s largest outdoor gallery is a flexible and dynamic space that enables artists to realize large-scale and monumental installations.
“Hyundai Motor will join the Whitney, a museum dedicated to supporting artistic experimentation, in embracing the complexities of our present by inviting visionary artists to share perspectives from their communities,” said Euisun Chung, Executive Chair of Hyundai Motor Group. “We look forward to how this multiyear partnership for the Whitney Biennial and the Hyundai Terrace Commission will amplify diverse voices, shaping our collective future through boundless explorations.”
Over the past decade, Hyundai Motor has deepened its partnerships with museums and organizations by supporting visionary initiatives around the world. Since its inception, the Whitney has been introducing emerging or relatively unknown artists to a larger audience and continues to be a powerful force in modern and contemporary art. This new partnership between Hyundai Motor and the Whitney expands a shared commitment to presenting the most relevant art and ideas of our time and opening up discussions for audiences worldwide. This is one of the longest and most expansive global corporate partnerships to date for the museum.
“It is an honor to partner with Hyundai Motor, an organization with a dedicated track record of supporting innovation in the arts,” said Scott Rothkopf, the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum. “Our outdoor terraces are a signature design element of Renzo Piano’s vision for the Whitney — an interface between the museum, the New York community and the neighboring Hudson River and High Line. With Hyundai’s generous support for both the Whitney Biennial and the Hyundai Terrace Commission, we can now realize the true potential of our grandest ‘outdoor gallery,’ allowing our curators and artists to dream big and test the bounds of creativity.”
With support from Hyundai Motor, the Whitney’s Hyundai Terrace Commission gives artists and curators the opportunity to push boundaries, innovate their practices, and execute their visions. The museum will present a rotation of annual site-specific commissions, which include outdoor installations, sculpture, performances and multimedia projects. In addition to supporting the Hyundai Terrace Commission, the company will also be the presenting partner for the Whitney Biennial, aligning the brand with the Whitney’s most groundbreaking and signature presentation of the leading contemporary American art of our day.
Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing opens March 20, 2024, and is the eighty-first edition of the museum’s landmark exhibition series, the longest-running survey of American art. During the years of the Biennial (every two years), the fifth-floor terrace space will feature the commissioned work of an artist for the Hyundai Terrace Commission in conjunction with the larger Biennial exhibition. The inaugural Hyundai Terrace Commission will launch in the spring of 2024 in line with the Whitney Biennial 2024.
Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing
March 20–Summer 2024, The Whitney Museum
Presented by Hyundai Motor
Hyundai Terrace Commission 2024
March 20–Winter 2025, The Whitney Museum
Presented by Hyundai Motor
