Mandy Harris Williams is a renaissance woman working across more media than one could reasonably hyphenate. On social media, in her monthly #brownupyourfeed radio hour on NTS, and with her myriad published essays, she challenges us to consider critical theories on race, gender, sexuality, and above all, privilege. She dares us to meet the most divisive aspects of our charged political culture with a caring ethic that prioritizes those most deprived of our love and compassion. Offline, her DJ sets are like a blast of Naloxone to the automatic nervous system with the power to reanimate the rhythm in even the shyest of wallflowers. After studying the history of the African diaspora at Harvard and receiving a masters of urban education at Loyola Marymount, Harris spent seven years as an educator in low-income communities. From there, she expanded her educational modalities to include a conceptual art practice, musical production informed by years of vocal training, and a lecture format of her own dialectic design. These “edutainment” experiences are one part college seminar, one part church sermon, and one part late-night talk show with a heavy dose of consensual roasting. It’s a Friar’s Club for an intellectual, intersectional, and internet-savvy generation. These performances draw us in with their vibey bass lines and hooks before they throw us under the quietly segregated bus that we’re still struggling to rectify. Mandy and I sat by the fire one lovely winter night in Los Angeles to talk about the contours of fascism, algorithmic injustice, her latest film for the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, and her upcoming residency at MoMa PS1.Read more.
Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life @ MoMA PS1 In New York
From the very outset of her career in the 1950s, Niki de Saint Phalle (American and French, 1930‒2002) defied artistic conventions, creating works that were overtly feminist, performative, collaborative, and monumental. Her first major US exhibition, Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life features over 200 works that highlight Saint Phalle’s interdisciplinary approach and engagement with pressing social issues. Innovation was key to Saint Phalle’s process: from beginning to end, she envisioned new ways of inhabiting the world.
Saint Phalle also engaged with the politics of social space in her work. Addressing subjects that ranged from women’s rights to climate change and HIV/AIDS awareness, she was often at the vanguard in addressing pressing issues of her time. In particular, her work to destigmatize HIV/AIDS is highlighted through works related to her illustrated book AIDS: You Can’t Catch It Holding Hands (1986).
Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life is on view through September 6 @ MoMA PS1 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Queens
The Museum Of Modern Art & MoMA PS1 Present First Major Retrospective Of Bruce Nauman In 25 Years
Co-organized by The Museum of Modern Art and Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel, Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts draws upon the rich holdings of both institutions and nearly 70 lenders. Encompassing Nauman’s full career and featuring a total of 165 works, the exhibition occupies the Museum’s entire sixth floor and the whole of MoMA PS1. This joint presentation provides an opportunity to experience Nauman’s command of a wide range of mediums, from drawing, printmaking, photography, and sculpture to neon, performance, film and video, and architecturally scaled environments.
Disappearing Acts traces strategies of withdrawal in Nauman’s art—both literal and figurative incidents of removal, deflection, and concealment. Close relatives of disappearance also appear in many forms. They are seen, for example, in holes the size of a body part, in the space under a chair, in the self vanishing around a corner, and in the mental blocks that empty creative possibility. “For Nauman,” said Halbreich, “disappearance is both a real phenomenon and a magnificently ample metaphor for grappling with the anxieties of both the creative process and of navigating the everyday world.”
Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts is on view through February 18 @ The Museum of Modern Art, and through February 25 @ MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, New York. photographs courtesy of MoMA
Oliver Clegg Book Launch and Slot Car Competition @ MOMA PS1 in New York
Oliver Clegg's self-titled monograph, published by Anomie, was launched at MOMA PS1 on December 2nd. Launch-goers participated in a slot car competition that featured box cars made by the artist. photographs by Adam Lehrer
Carolee Schneemann "Kinetic Painting" @ MoMA PS1 in New York
MoMA PS1 presents the first comprehensive retrospective of Carolee Schneemann, spanning the artist’s prolific six-decade career. As one of the most influential artists of the second part of the 20th century, Schneemann’s pioneering investigations into subjectivity, the social construction of the female body, and the cultural biases of art history have had significant influence on subsequent generations of artists. Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting begins with rarely seen examples of the artist’s early paintings of the 1950s and their evolution into assemblages made in the 1960s, which integrated objects, mechanical elements, and modes of deconstruction. In the late 1960s Schneemann began positioning her own body within her work, performing the roles of “both image and image-maker.” As a central protagonist of the New York downtown avant-garde community, she explored hybrid artistic forms culminating in experimental theater events. The exhibition considers Schneemann’s oeuvre within the context of painting by tracing the developments that led to her groundbreaking innovations in performance, film, and installation in the 1970s, as well as her increasingly spatialized multimedia installations from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Carolee Schneemann "Kinetic Painting" will be on view until March 11, 2018 at MoMA PS1 in New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer
Mark Leckey "Containers and Their Drivers" @ MOMA PS1 in New York
MoMA PS1 presents the first comprehensive U.S. survey of the pioneering British artist Mark Leckey and the largest exhibition of his work to date. Since coming to prominence in the late 1990s, Mark Leckey’s dynamic and varied practice has combined formal experimentation with pointed explorations of class and history. His art has addressed the radical effect of technology on popular culture, and given form to the transition from analog to digital culture, powerfully influencing younger generations of artists. The exhibition brings together major bodies of Leckey’s work, including a broad array of video works and sculptural installations alongside new pieces made specifically for the exhibition. Mark Leckey "Containers and Their Drivers" will be on view until March 5, 2017 at MOMA PS1 in New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer
Printed Matter Presents The Tenth Annual New York Art Book Fair @ MOMA PS1
photographs by Adam Lehrer
Katharina Grosse "Rockaway!" Presented by MoMA PS1 at the Gateway National Recreation Area at Fort Tilden, New York
MoMA PS1 presents Rockaway!, a special outdoor exhibit by artist Katharina Grosse, acclaimed for exploring the medium of painting in regards to its locations, conditions and possibilities. Through this temporary public art installation, Grosse turns Ft. Tilden's decaying aquatics building into a sublimely exhilarating exterior painting with her unique spray painting technique. In her practice, Grosse seeks to extend the scope of her paintings beyond the traditional borders of a canvas. She uses a technique in which brightly colored paint is sprayed directly onto site-specific structures. In doing so, she incorporates both the architectural features of the space, and materials located in its immediate vicinity, such as sand, trees, sea grass and pavement. These sprawling and sculptural landscapes evoke the physicality of action painting and earthworks through their gestures and monumentality. Grosse’s work seamlessly combines the subtle nuances of light and shadow, characteristic of traditional landscape painting, with the weight and spectacle of large scale sculpture. In this exhibition, Grosse’s singular approach highlights the possibilities of painting as a medium, and encapsulates the stark beauty of the natural and manmade structures in which this installation is contextualized. Rockaway! will be on view at the Gateway National Recreation Area at Fort Tilden, New York until November 30, 2016. photographs by Pablo Enriquez
Highlights From The Greater New York Survey @ MoMA PS1
On Sunday MoMA PS1 opened the doors to its awaited exhibition Greater New York and let anxious New Yorkers roam through the galleries. The exhibition has been co-curated by Peter Eleey, Douglas Crimp, Thomas J. Laz, and Mia Locks and encompasses the works of 150 New York based artists. Stepping away from the traditional focus on youth the fourth iteration of MoMA PS1’s landmark exhibition aims to balance our desire for the new and nostalgia for the past. Greater New York will be on view until March 16, 2016 at MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY. photographs and text by Adriana Pauly. Click here to read the full review.
Cyprien Gaillard The Crystal World @ MOMA PS1
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Cyprien Gaillard's (b. 1980, Paris) work navigates geographical sites and psychological states, addressing the relationship between architecture and nature, and evolution and erosion. Using a variety of artistic mediums ranging from painting and sculpture to photography, film, and video, Gaillard juxtaposes pictorial beauty and the atmospherically lush with elements of sudden violence, destruction, and idiosyncrasy culled from popular culture, pointing to the precarious nature of public space, social ritual, and the very viability of the notion of civilization. Cyprien Gaillard The Crystal World is on view until March 18, 2013 at MOMA PS1, 4601 21st St Long Island City, NY
Clifford Owens Demands Sex from Audience at MoMA PS1
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This is the last weekend to see Clifford Owens first exhibition, entitled Anthology, at a New York museum – MoMA PS1 – which is comprised of photography, video, and live performance. Anthology features performances scores—written or graphical instructions for actions—that Owens solicited from a multigenerational group of African-American artists. Twenty-six major artists have contributed scores, nearly all of whom composed new works specifically for Owens and his project. This weekend will prove especially challenging when he will "demand sex" from the audience/viewer. This Sunday, for his last performance, Kara Walker has written the score: "French kiss an audience member. Force them against a wall and demand Sex. The audience/viewer should be an adult. If they are willing to participate in the forced sex act abruptly turn the tables and you assume the role of victim. Accuse your attacker. Seek help from others, describe your ordeal. Repeat." Clifford Owen's performance commences at 3 p.m. on the second floor of MoMA PS1 this Sunday, March 12.