Bik van der Pol, Jenny Holzer, The Bureau of Inverse Technology (Special Agent: Natalie Jeremijenko), Mark Lombardi, Lin + Lam, Trevor Paglen, Ben Rubin, Susan Schuppli, Julia Meltzer and David Thorne, and others

Curated by Angelique Campens, Erica Cooke, and Steven Lam, Helena Rubenstein Curatorial Fellows, The Whitney Independent Study Program

While the American government guarantees its citizens the freedom of speech and press, the intertwining of corporate and political interests dictates the public’s access to information— controlling the who, what, when, and how of what is seen and heard. As secrecy supplants transparency in our current flow of information, the urgent question for artists becomes what is at their disposal to observe, critique, or reveal. Foreshadowing the public’s participation in the upcoming election, For Reasons of State asks us to challenge whether our current use of the ‘need-to-know’ principle should be exchanged for a more democratic ‘right-to-know.’