Events
Summer School
Summer School at MoMA PS1 presents Master Classes during the month of August, 2011 taught by Gus Van Sant, James Franco and Francisco J. Ricardo, Ph.D. This new initiative includes lectures and discussions that bring students together to take part in a conversation around contemporary practice with artists, authors, musicians, curators, theorists, and scholars. Artist Laurel Nakadate will be a special guest on the occasion of her solo exhibition at MoMA PS1.
Modeled after European summer academies and especially relevant considering that MoMA PS1 is housed in a former school, Summer School makes the museum grounds a campus again with Master Classes taught by contemporary practitioners. The intimate space of the museum provides a setting for candid conversation, experimentation and practice. As a part of the program, students attending the first Master Class will be assigned "homework" for the subsequent sessions, establishing an ongoing, sustained dialogue between teachers and students, institution and visitor.
Franco and Van Sant recently collaborated on a film entitled My Own Private River, which will be installed in the main theater and played continuously during museum hours, beginning July 30th. My Own Private River is comprised of unused footage and dailies from Van Sant’s film My Own Private Idaho, and focuses on the character Mike, played by River Phoenix. The film is more observational and less linear than its original iteration, creating a dreamlike, more associative sensibility.
Additional films that inform the discourse of Summer School 2011 will also be on view, including Satantango (1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) by Bêla Tarr, Jeanne Dielman (1975) by Chantal Akerman, Stroszek (1977) by Werner Herzog, and other films by Gus Van Sant.
Gus Van Sant (American, b. 1952) is an acclaimed film director and artist. His films include Goodwill Hunting (1997), Finding Forester (2000), and Milk (2008), among others. Vant Sant wrote the novel Pink, which was published in 1997 and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
James Franco (American, b. 1978) is an actor, filmmaker, writer and artist. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the film 127 Hours, has won a Teddy Award for his short film Feast of Stephen at the Berlin Film Festival, has published a collection of short stories titled Palo Alto: Stories, and has exhibited in galleries and museums nationally and internationally.
Francisco J. Ricardo, Ph.D. is a media theorist, teacher in the Digital + Media Department of the Rhode Island School of Design, and the founding editor of Continuum's International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics.
Laurel Nakadate (b. 1975) is known for her works in video, photography, and feature-length film. Only the Lonely, currently on view at MoMA PS1, is Nakadate's first large-scale museum exhibition and features work in all three media made over the last ten years. This includes her early video works, in which she was invited into the homes of anonymous men to dance, pose, or even play dead in their kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms.