The 2010 Whitney Biennial, the grand cotillion of the American contemporary art scene, will be opening its doors next week to introduce viewers to new talents, under-appreciated veterans, and other artists whom curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari consider relevant to work being made today. The show will also be introducing its small group of 55 artists to the scrutiny of the art world at large, a contentious tribe that relishes nothing more than the chance to argue over the Biennial's artist selection, or just pan the exhibition outright. (In his review of the provocatively political 1993 Biennial, New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman succinctly wrote, "I hate the show.")

Of course, the Biennial has a sneaky way of biting its critics in the rear, announcing artists and concepts that eventually emerge as crucial to the contemporary discourse. (That 1993 show now looks remarkably prescient for its survey of political-art strategies.) To get to know the participants in this year's show, we've split the artists into several categories. First up is the most pervasive: an often socially-interconnected group of 15 under-40 artists who live in New York City, many of them within the same one-mile radius of the Lower East Side or Williamsburg. — Andrew M. Goldstein

Thank you to the Whitney Museum of American Art for its assistance in compiling this information.

Richard Aldrich
Born: 1975 in Hampton, Virginia
Resides in: Brooklyn, New York
Known for: Paintings and assemblages that mix minimalist strategies with the legacy of Rauschenberg. Was in P.S.1's "Greater New York" survey in 2005.
Education: Ohio State
Represented by: Bortolami (N.Y.), Marc Foxx (L.A.), Corvi Mora (London)
Web site

Tauba Auerbach
Born: 1981 in San Francisco
Resides in: New York and San Francisco
Known for: Paintings, trompe l'oeil compositions, memorably bizarro sound installations. Was in "Younger than Jesus" triennial at the New Museum. Dubbed a "visionary female artist" by Jerry Saltz.
Education: Stanford
Represented by: Deitch Projects (N.Y.), Jack Hanley Gallery (S.F.), Standard (Oslo)
Web site

Josh Brand
Born: 1980 in Milwaukee
Resides in: Brooklyn, New York
Known for: Process-oriented abstract photographic works. A member of the art collective Hurray. Had first solo show at White Columns in 2007.
Education: Art Institute of Chicago
Represented by: Herald St. (London)
Web site

The Bruce High Quality Foundation
Born: Late 1970s
Resides in: Brooklyn, New York
Known for: Videos, installations, stunts imbued with art-school conceptualism. Run a non-accredited university downtown, throw signature parties. Featured in Creative Time's "Plot/09: This World and Nearer Ones" (curated by Mark Beasley) and said to be in "Greater New York" 2010. Known to associate with Vito Schnabel.
Education: Cooper UnionRepresented by: Susan Inglett Gallery (N.Y.)
Web site

Sarah Crowner
Born: 1974 in Philadelphia
Resides in: Brooklyn, New York
Known for: Elegant paintings, merging hard-edge abstraction with distaff craft elements of sewing; also pottery sculptures. Featured in Bob Nickas' book Painting Abstraction. Blinky Palermo's fabric works might be a starting point.
Education: University of California, Santa Cruz; Hunter College MFA
Represented by: Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (N.Y.) and Nice & Fit (Berlin)
Web site

Kate Gilmore
Born: 1975 in Washington, D.C.
Resides in: New York, New York
Known for: Performance-based video work characterized by toughly feminine physical challenges — kicking through drywall in high heels, for instance, or squeezing through a tight tunnel in a satin dress. Featured in " Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video" at the Brooklyn Museum (curated by Lauren Ross).
Education: Bates College, School of Visual Arts MFA
Represented by: Smith-Stewart (N.Y.)
Web site

Sharon Hayes
Born: 1970 in Baltimore
Resides in: New York, New York
Known for: Video, performance, and installation work concerned with collective political action and its relationship to personal lived experience. Was exhibited in Tate Modern's 2007 "Media Burn" show (curated by Ann Coxon and Amy Dickson). Contributed an interpretation of Allan Kaprow's Yard to Hauser & Wirth's inaugural New York show.
Education: Bowdoin, UCLA MFA, Whitney Independent Study Program
Represented by: Tanya Leighton Gallery (Berlin)
Web site

Alex Hubbard
Born: 1975 in Toledo
Resides in: Brooklyn, New York
Known for: Paintings and videos that confuse processes of production, disorienting the viewer with optical games. Has been exhibited at Paris's Palais de Tokyo and the Whitney's former Altria branch, as well as in last year's "Nothingness and Being" show at the Jumex Collection (curated by former Whitney Altria head Shamim Momin).
Education: Lewis and Clark College, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Whitney Independent Study Program
Represented by: Standard (Oslo), Maccarone (N.Y.)
Web site

Daniel McDonald
Born: 1971 in L.A.
Resides in: New York, New York
Known for: Satirical figurine sculptures that often target the art economy. Also performs as the Star Wars-costumed cabaret singer Mindy Vale. Worked at Colin de Land's American Fine Arts gallery, co-founding Art Club 2000. Was exhibited in SculptureCenter's 2007 show "The Happiness of Objects" (curated by Sarina Basta).
Education: Cooper Union
Represented by: Broadway 1602 (N.Y.)
Web site

Rashaad Newsome
Born: 1979 in New Orleans
Resides in: New York, NY
Known for: Collage and performance works borrowing aspects of splicing from hip-hop and hacker culture. Exhibited at Paris's Fondation Cartier and the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.
Education: Tulane University, Film/Video Arts
Represented by: Galeria Ramis Barquet (N.Y. and Garza Garcia, Mexico)
Web site

Emily Roysdon
Born: 1977 in Easton, Maryland
Resides in: New York, New York and Stockholm, Sweden
Known for: Multidisciplinary work combining visual art with language and text. Founding editor of queer feminist publication and collective LTTR, contributor to Cabinet, and occasionally performer with the band MEN. Was exhibited in "Younger than Jesus" and held a residency at the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (IASPIS).
Education: UCLA MFA, Whitney Independent Study Program
Represented by: No representation listed
Web site

Aki Sasamoto
Born: 1980 in Yokohama, Japan
Resides in: Brooklyn, New York
Known for: Performance art pieces that combine whimsical, personal, and often humorous storytelling with physical challenges, like crawling through a narrow cardboard tube or slicing fruit on a tabletop with knife blades attached to her shoes. Frequently collaborates with Momus. Was featured in the 2008 Yokohama Triennial and in "Freeway Balconies" (curated by Collier Schorr) at Berlin's Deutsche Guggenheim in 2008.
Education: Wesleyan University, Columbia MFA
Represented by: No representation listed
Web site

Aurel Schmidt
Born: 1982 in Kamloops, British Columbia
Resides in: New York, NY
Known for: Intricate drawings and paintings that fuse disparate elements — body parts, animals, trash — into Archimboldo-like portraits. Has been shown by Deitch Projects, Peres Projects, and Spencer Brownstone Gallery. Collector Dakis Joannou was one of her first collectors, picking up work at a show curated by Schmidt's friend Tim Barber. She is a staple of Purple Diary and other fashion pages.
Education: Unknown
Represented by: No representation listed
No Web site

Stephanie Sinclair
Born: 1973 in Miami
Resides in: New York, NY
Known for: Photography and photojournalism documenting points of crisis in the Middle East, from Gaza to Afghanistan. Worked for five years at the Chicago Tribune, covering the Iraq War and helping the team that won the paper's 2000 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the airline industry. Winner of various photography awards, including France's Visa d'Or in 2004.
Education: University of Florida
Represented by: Vii Photo
Web site

Marianne Vitale
Born: 1973 in New York
Resides in: New York, NY
Known for: Sculptures, installations, drawings, animated films, and video that sometimes detail a complex, diabolical cosmology involving a war between heaven and hell. Her work has been exhibited at SculptureCenter in 2009 and White Columns in 2007.
Education: School of Visual Arts MFA
Represented by: IBID Projects (London)
Web site