Is it possible to capture the current state of American art in just one exhibition? The Whitney Biennial has been doing exactly that since 1932. This year’s show, the 82nd edition, investigates the “strangeness of our times,” the museum’s director, Scott Rothkopf, recently told The New York Times. “It allows visitors to encounter the world as artists are sensing it, structurally unstable and emotionally charged yet also full of possibility.” The 2026 Whitney Biennial lets viewers decide how to interpret works that draw on a chaotic culture and a world full of fissures. A majority of the 56 artists are millennials and almost a third self-identify as queer. —Maggie Turner