Mary Heilmann once said that "museums are places to hang out," and this exhibition embodies that spirit, inviting social connection and engagement with the Whitney's architecture, the Hudson River, and the surrounding cityscape. The immersive environment includes a hand-painted mural of Heilmann's 2020 painting Long Line, as well as a variety of sculptural chairs related to furniture she has displayed in galleries and homes. The influence of 1960s counterculture and geometric Minimalism are reflected in Heilmann's decades-long approach to abstraction, one centered on exuberant color and unorthodox form. Long Line was influenced by the artist's experience watching waves off the coasts of Long Island and California—here it creates a visual rhyme with the Hudson River.
This new site-specific installation, Mary Heilmann: Long Line, celebrates the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Whitney's downtown building, for which Heilmann created Mary Heilmann: Sunset (2015). That project, which included a large-scale reproduction of a vibrant painting, a film, and Heilmann's signature chairs, inaugurated the Museum's largest outdoor gallery and transformed it into a site of reverie and leisure as well as a place for reflection on an ever-changing city.
