Monday, February 27, 2012
Ersatz Whitney 2012 website now online, announcing the Biennial's break with corporate sponsors Sotheby's and Deutsche Bank.
The 2012 Whitney Biennial held a well attended media preview today and also allowed Sotheby's auction house, one of the exhibition's major corporate sponsors, to host a private preview reception this evening.
Also today, a hoax website appeared online, http://whitney2012.org/, seemingly a direct intervention by art hacktivists, possibly the Yes Men or Arts and Labor, a “working group” of Occupy Wall Street.
It announces that the Biennial has broken ties with both Sotheby's and another corporate sponsor, Deutsche Bank, and returned their money. Reasons cited are the lockout of unionized art handlers and secondary market speculation by Sotheby's, and mortgage fraud by Deutsche Bank.
