Whitney Museum of American Art. COURTESY WHITNEY MUSEUM

The Whitney Museum in New York has revealed the list for this year’s Whitney Biennial, which aims to offer a wide-ranging view of American art today. Curated by Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta, the show runs from May 17 to September 22.

In a statement, Hockley said this year’s show—the Biennial’s 79th edition—will focus on “the mining of history in order to reimagine the present or future, a profound and sustained consideration of questions of equity along financial, racial, and sexual lines, a concern with climate change, and explorations of the vulnerability of the body.”

As with the 2017 edition, this year’s Whitney Biennial skews young. The 2019 Biennial includes some of today’s most closely watched emerging artists, among them Korakrit Arunanondchai, Elle Pérez, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Martine Syms. Hockley and Panetta have placed them alongside art-world veterans, like the experimental-filmmaking pioneer Barbara Hammer and the late artist James Luna. Also included is Simone Leigh, who won the Guggenheim Museum’s 2018 Hugo Boss Prize.

In typical form for the biennial, the show will include performance and film programming. The performance events will be overseen by Greta Hartenstein, an independent curator, and the film screenings are being organized by Maori Karmael Holmes, Sky Hopinka (who was in the 2017 Whitney Biennial), and Matt Wolf.

Panetta said in a statement that, of the 75 artists and collectives lined up to participate, some 75 percent are under 40. “In part,” she said, “this emphasis resulted from what we saw during our research across the U.S., as we were struck by the profound difficulties of our current moment and the ways in which so many artists we encountered are struggling and facing fewer opportunities to present their work publicly.”

[See the artist list broken down by the numbers.]

Though the 2019 Whitney Biennial is still a little under three months away, it has already generated some controversy. The New York Times reported that in December artist Michael Rakowitz told the curators that he was pulling out of the biennial. His decision not to show at the museum was meant as a protest against Warren B. Kanders, the Whitney’s vice chairman, who owns Safariland, a company that produces tear gas and other products used against asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Last year, nearly 100 Whitney staff members—among them Hockley—signed an open letter asking the Whitney to consider having Kanders resign. A protest led by the group Decolonize This Place followed.)

In January, the activist group W.A.G.E. issued a missive to the Biennial’s participants, calling on them to “demand to be paid for the content they provide and withhold that content until the demands of Whitney staff are met.” W.A.G.E. then issued another open letter last week that said its prior statements applied to future Whitney Biennials as well.

The artist list follows.

Eddie Arroyo

Korakrit Arunanondchai

Olga Balema

Morgan Bassichis

Blitz Bazawule

Alexandra Bell

Brian Belott

Meriem Bennani

Robert Bittenbender

Lucas Blalock

Garrett Bradley

Milano Chow

Colectivo Los Ingrávidos

Thirza Cuthand

John Edmonds

Nicole Eisenman

Janiva Ellis

Kota Ezawa

Brendan Fernandes

FIERCE and Paper Tiger Television

Marcus Fischer

Forensic Architecture

Ellie Ga

Nicholas Galanin

Sofía Gallisá Muriente

Jeffrey Gibson

Todd Gray

Sam Green

Barbara Hammer

Ilana Harris-Babou

Matthew Angelo Harrison

Curran Hatleberg

Madeline Hollander

Iman Issa

Tomashi Jackson

Steffani Jemison

Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys

Christine Sun Kim

Josh Kline

Autumn Knight

Carolyn Lazard

Maia Ruth Lee

Simone Leigh

Daniel Lind-Ramos

James Luna

Eric N. Mack

Calvin Marcus

Tiona Nekkia McClodden

Troy Michie

Joe Minter

Keegan Monaghan

Caroline Monnet

Darius Clark Monroe

Ragen Moss

Sahra Motalebi

Marlon Mullen

Jeanette Mundt

Wangechi Mutu

Las Nietas de Nonó (Lydela Nonó and Michel Nonó)

Jenn Nkiru

Laura Ortman

Jennifer Packer

nibia pastrana santiago

Elle Pérez

Pat Phillips

Gala Porras-Kim

Walter Price

Carissa Rodriguez

Paul Mpagi Sepuya

Heji Shin

Diane Simpson

Martine Syms

Kyle Thurman

Mariana Valencia

Agustina Woodgate