New York Fashion at PS1, 1980–1984

Opening this fall, New York Fashion at PS1, 1980–1984 revisits the museum’s fashion program, initiated in 1980 as part of its wider Multi-Disciplinary Program, which spanned sound, performance, poetry, film, and architecture. Featuring notes, correspondence, photographs, and ephemera drawn from the MoMA PS1 archives, among others, the exhibition focuses on projects realized at the museum by independent curator Hollywood Di Russo (1946–2005) with designers in the city. A stylist and make-up artist, Di Russo aimed to highlight fashion’s influence on visual culture and the arts, outside the commercial realm and the formal conventions of costume display. She told GQ in 1981: “I want to explore… the idea of fashion making us feel things: important or silly, handsome or sexy… We’re training our eyes to be more yielding, our hearts to be more receptive.”

Organized on the occasion of the museum’s 50th anniversary, New York Fashion includes partial reconstructions of experimental installations at PS1 by Julio (1980), Homer Layne / Charles James (1981), Willi Smith (1982), and Betsey Johnson (1983), alongside key documents and video.