Whitney Biennial 2012 Collection

It's not a stretch to say that the Whitney Biennial is the most important event in the American art world, reliably bringing artists of historic talent to the public view-whether audiences are ready for them or not.

The show has a storied lineage: founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932 as a yearly exhibition of art made in the United States (at a time when Paris still remained the world's uncontested art capital), it began alternating editions between painting and sculpture in the 1960s, then merged the two shows into one bi-annual exhibition in 1973. And while the tradition of fulminating against the show is a lively one-Michael Kimmelman once called it "the art world's blood sport"-inclusion in the show is often a career-making honor for the Biennial's artists, bringing them to the attention of curators and collectors around the world.

That is certainly the case for the artists spotlighted in Artspace's new Whitney Biennial collection, featuring work by both veterans of the show like Richard Tuttle (who was included in 1977, 1987, and 2000) and rising art stars who have recently been given powerful boosts by the exhibition, like Mark Bradford, who in 2006 won the Biennial's Bucksbaum Award given to artists who have "the potential to make a lasting impact on the history of American art." Just think: with this range of work by major artists, you could curate your own mini-Biennial at home.