On January 10, 1973, the Whitney Museum of American Art opened Whitney Biennial 1973: Contemporary American Art, running through March 18. The museum's own archive identifies the 1973 exhibition as the start of the Biennial's current format: a survey of work in all media every two years, replacing earlier medium-specific annuals that had alternated painting, sculpture, and works on paper. Installation records and press highlights show the show filling the museum with sculpture, painting, new media, installation-like environments, and difficult-to-classify practices. Works by artists documented in Whitney installation captions included Joan Mitchell, Tony Smith, Ellsworth Kelly, Sylvia Stone, Clement Meadmore, Ronald Bladen, Alice Adams, and Raphael Ferrera. The date marks a structural change in how a major U.S. museum periodically defined contemporary American art.
The 1973 format helped make the Whitney Biennial a recurring barometer of contemporary American art.
