What Grows? is the first piece of a long-term participatory mural project, titled After the Fire, initiated in 2020 by MoMA PS1 with artists Nanibah Chacon (Dinè and Chicana, b. 1980), Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Persian and Black American, b. 1985), and Layqa Nuna Yawar (Runakuna, Ecuadorian, North American, b. 1984).

From the start of his practice, a critical material for Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thai, b. 1961) has been the presence of “a lot of people”—a purposefully broad and expansive term that stands as an open invitation to everyone and anyone, present and future. His largest exhibition to date, Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE traces four decades of the artist’s career and features over 100 works, from early experimentations with installation and film, to works on paper, photographs, ephemera, sculptures, and newly produced “plays” of key participatory pieces.

MoMA PS1 presents Leslie Martinez’s (b. 1985, McAllen, Texas) first New York museum exhibition. Martinez, who lived in New York City for fifteen years before returning to Texas in 2019, exhibits their largest body of work to date, which features recent paintings and three newly commissioned large-scale artworks. Using a cosmic palette based on the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) color model, the artist sprays and stains canvases with diluted paint, and then folds, pools, and collages materials onto the surface—including rags and dried acrylics.

This fall, MoMA PS1 hosts a presentation in Homeroom of artworks made by ten alumni of Teen Art Salon, a Long Island City-based organization that provides resources and visibility to early-career artists ages 11 to 19. Continuing the organization’s relationship with PS1, Teen Art Salon: A Protospective includes a collection of sketchbooks and works on paper that grapple with the revelry and hurdles of adolescence. Bringing together new artwork and a selection of works produced over the past decade by teenagers—materials that are often infantilized as “juvenilia”—the presentation underscores the role of young people as both spectators and arbiters of visual culture, archiving a coming-of-age story in real time.

In the fifth iteration of a multiyear collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, the Studio Museum in Harlem presents its annual Artist-in-Residence exhibition at MoMA PS1. And ever an edge: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2022–23 features new work by the 2022–23 cohort of the Studio Museum’s foundational residency program: artists Jeffrey Meris (b. 1991, Haiti), Devin N. Morris (b. 1986, Baltimore, MD), and Charisse Pearlina Weston (b. 1988, Houston, TX). 

For his exhibition A LOT OF PEOPLE, Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thai, b. 1961) stages five interactive artworks as a series of plays. In untitled 1991/2008 (shall we dance), an actor invites visitors to dance to the song “Shall We Dance” from the 1956 musical film The King and I. Based on a popular Broadway musical, the film tells the story of an English governess who travels to Thailand (then Siam) to tutor the children of the king. In the scene Tiravanija references, the governess teaches the king to dance in a Western style. By recasting and traversing the east/west, civilized/uncivilized binaries that the film perpetuates, the artist creates a platform for animated encounters between strangers.

Join us for our Open House to celebrate new exhibitions with talks from artists, authors, and educators. The event marks the opening weekend of three shows: Leslie Martinez: The Fault of Formation, And ever an edge: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2022–23, and Teen Art Salon. The entire day of conversations, screenings, and activities is free and open to the public.

Join us for a conversation launching the catalogue of Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE, which accompanies the artist’s survey exhibition at MoMA PS1. Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Ruba Katrib will join designer Tiffany Malakooti, artist Liam Gillick, and art historian Molly Nesbit to discuss the challenges of archiving Tiravanija’s practice, the role of personal memory in his work, and the publication’s structural use of chronology. The most comprehensive volume on Tiravanija’s work to date, the book traces his major projects from the 1980s through today. It features over 600 color images, including many never-before published, and newly commissioned texts by art historians, curators, artists, and key collaborators who have been in dialogue with Tiravanija over the years. Signed catalogues will be available for purchase on site.

Join an in-person roundtable discussion with the Studio Museum in Harlem’s 2022-23 Artists in Residence Jeffrey Meris, Devin N. Morris, and Charisse Pearlina Weston.

On the opening weekend of The Fault of Formation, join us for a conversation between artist Leslie Martinez and writer and educator Raquel Gutiérrez, author of Brown Neon (2022). The conversation will consider how Martinez’s practice is rooted in histories of abstraction and methodologies of rasquachismo. Martinez and Gutiérrez will also delve into explorations of the Southwestern terrains, intergenerational dynamics, and queer futurities that inform both of their practices. This event is part of MoMA PS1’s Open House and will be moderated by Elena Ketelsen González, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1.