The 2009 Whitney’s Biennial, organized by MaryKate Maher, Martha Mysko, Davida Nemeroff and Elise Rasmussen, was an interdisciplinary exhibition of 38 artists’ work taking place in an unoccupied commercial space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The exhibition re-envisioned the ubiquitous Biennial formula by personalizing the institution, paring it down to a single person. Whitney is the proverbial Every Artist, the flesh-and-bone actor laboring under the shadows of giants. This was her Biennial.

The participating artists were widely diverse — from those who have exhibited in major museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, to the graffiti artist, to the underground filmmaker, to the recent MFA graduate. All were asked to meet on common ground, outside of the white cube, to create new works for this show.