The Whitney Museum of American Art ( 99 Gansevoort St, New York, NY 10014) opened a site-specific installation by artist Precious Okoyomon on Wednesday, March 25, as a centerpiece of the 82nd Whitney Biennial.
The exhibition, titled “Everything wants to kill you, and you should be afraid,” occupies the museum’s entire eighth-floor gallery. The work expands on Okoyomon’s career-long exploration of the intersections between beauty, vulnerability, and systemic violence.
The installation features hybrid, angel-like figures constructed from dismantled and reassembled discarded stuffed animals. The forms are fitted with taxidermy bird wings and suspended from nooses, a visual choice the museum says invokes the history of racial violence in the United States while resisting a singular interpretation.
Okoyomon describes the work as a reflection on the merging of “unbearable cuteness and unbearable violence,” a duality intended to mirror the contradictions of contemporary life.
A secondary component of the installation is located on the museum’s fifth floor. It features a sculptural figure combining a 1960s-era plush bunny suit with the head of a blackface doll from the 1930s or 1940s. According to the artist, the piece explores the “uneasy threshold between object and subject, play and punishment.”
The 2026 Whitney Biennial, the longest-running survey of American art, features 56 artists, duos, and collectives. This year’s edition is co-organized by curators Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer.
“Whitney Biennial 2026 offers a vivid, atmospheric survey shaped by a moment of profound complexity,” the museum said in a statement, noting that the exhibition foregrounds mood and texture over definitive answers regarding the current state of American culture.
The exhibition is accompanied by a full schedule of performances and public programs, both at the museum and online.
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