Mubi Launches Historic Partnership with Whitney Biennial to Stream Eight Films for Exhibit

Samantha Bergeson

9 April 2024 at 10:00 am·4-min read

Mubi has officially made history with the iconic Whitney Museum.

This Whitney Biennial, eight films from the program will be able to be streamed during the show across the U.S., Canada, and UK beginning this Friday, April 12. The forthcoming film program is part of the “Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing” for the 81st edition of the Museum’s landmark exhibition series.

More from IndieWire

“Film has been an important component of Whitney Biennials since the 1970s, and we are thrilled to continue our commitment to film in a new online initiative partnering with Mubi, giving an even greater platform to artists and allowing us to reach wider audiences beyond the Museum,” Whitney curators Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli said in a press statement.

The program is additionally co-organized by guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr., and Zackary Drucker. Select films include Siku Allooloo’s “Spirit Emulsion,” Ligia Lewis’ “A Plot, A Scandal,” and the Raqs Media Collective’s “The Bicyclist Who Fell into a Time Cone.”

The partnership not only gives existing MUBI subscribers access to the 2024 Whitney Biennial film program but also offers each Biennial ticket holder a free 60-day MUBI subscription to watch Biennial films along with full access to other MUBI platform titles.

See below for the full list of the Whitney Biennial films available on Mubi starting April 12, and check out the trailer below.

Siku Allooloo, “Spirit Emulsion,” 2022, 7:30 min.
In the experimental short film Spirit Emulsion, the Inuit/Haitian/Taíno filmmaker, writer, and activist Siku Allooloo combines analog Super 8 film that was hand-developed with plant medicines and flowers from both the Northwest Territories (where Allooloo is from) and Coast Salish territories (where the film was made) with digital video to convey the enduring presence of her maternal Taíno culture.

Seba Calfuqueo, “TRAY TRAY KO,” 2022, 6:13 min.
On view in the Biennial sixth-floor galleries, screened during an onsite film program, and streamed on MUBI, Seba Calfuqueo’s TRAY TRAY KO invites viewers to embark on a journey into the heart of Mapuche cosmology through a video performance in which the artist interweaves her own body into a sacred landscape.

Kite, “Pahá kiŋ lená wakháŋ (These hills are sacred),” 2017, 8:32 min.
In the video Pahá kiŋ lená wakháŋ (These hills are sacred), the Oglála Lakóta artist Kite focuses on the intricate interplay between artificial intelligence and Lakóta philosophies of the nature of being.

Ligia Lewis, “A Plot, A Scandal,” 2023, 20 min.
Weaving together multiple historical epics with political and mythical narratives, artist Ligia Lewis’s A Plot, A Scandal uses ideas of spectacle and scandal to address the continued dispossession of “Europe’s Others,” as Lewis describes them. Lewis’s film is also on view in the Biennial fifth-floor galleries.

Nyala Moon, “Dilating for Maximum Results,” 2023, 14:10 min.
In the film Dilating for Maximum Results, director, writer, and actress Nyala Moon tells the story of Dreya (played by Moon), a Black transgender woman attempting to dilate her vagina after undergoing vaginoplasty surgery in preparation for her first romantic encounter with a man she met online.

Raqs Media Collective, “The Bicyclist Who Fell into a Time Cone,” 2023, 25:05 min.
Raqs Media Collective’s The Bicyclist Who Fell into a Time Cone approaches the histories of the year 1980 from multiple vantage points, alternating between analog video and the historical present.

Penelope Spheeris, “I Don’t Know,” 1970, 20:11 min.
Widely recognized for documenting America’s punk and metal subcultures during the 1980s and 1990s, director and screenwriter Penelope Spheeris centered her film I Don’t Know on the amorphous relationship between her biological sister and a transgender person.

Clarissa Tossin, “Mojo’q che b’ixan ri ixkanulab’ / Antes de que los volcanes canten / Before the Volcanoes Sing,” 2022, 63:16 min.
Artist Clarissa Tossin’s film Mojo’q che b’ixan ri ixkanulab’ / Antes de que los volcanes canten / Before the Volcanoes Sing, a collaboration with the Maya K’iche ’Kaqchiquel poet Rosa Chávez and the Ixil Maya artist Tohil Fidel Brito Bernal, looks at ways in which contemporary Maya culture is activated by means of both reclamation and recreation. Tossin’s film is also on view in the Biennial fifth-floor galleries alongside 3D-printed copies of ancient Maya flutes that appear in the film.

Best of IndieWire