MoMA PS1
MoMA's Affiliation with MoMA PS1
Visiting MoMA PS1
Performance Program
January 21, 2009–Ongoing
April 16–May 12, 2012
Words in the World
January 25–July 30, 2012
9 Scripts from a Nation at War
Theatrical and staged elements have been a key feature of visual art throughout the 20th century. Movements like Futurism, Dada, and Bauhaus employed theater, dance, music, and poetry with live or broadcast performances to engage with audiences. In the 1960s and 1970s, performance gained renewed momentum when artists conceived of Happenings, Fluxus, "actions," experimental dance, and site-specific interventions.
Throughout its history MoMA has been host to many artworks involving live and performative elements, from Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York (1960) to Francis Alÿs’s The Modern Procession (2002). Others were unsolicited and sometimes subversive artist actions, like Yayoi Kusama’s Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at MoMA (1969) or Guerrilla Art Action Group’s Blood Bath (1969). While most of these activities previously took place at the periphery of MoMA's exhibition program, the 2008 addition of "and Performance Art" to what was then called the Department of Media introduced performance art as a central component in the Museum's programming. Read more
Upcoming program topics
New Commissions
Engaging Works in the Collection
Actions and Interventions
Media and Technology in Action
Fluxus: The Silverman Fluxus Collection as a Resource
Experimental and Postmodern Dance
Heydays of Performance Art
What’s Left from the 1980s: Queerness, et al.
The Performance Program is organized by Sabine Breitwieser, Chief Curator and Ana Janevski, Associate Curator.
The Performance Program is made possible by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.
Related Events
Upcoming
Past
Concerts, Readings & Performances
|
Performance Program
Nora Schultz with Ei Arakawa. Countdown Performance. 2007/2012
Nora Schultz (German, b. 1975), together with New York–based artist Ei Arakawa (b. 1977), performs a countdown from 10 to zero, bending a thin, flexible length of stainless steel into the form of each successive number. Because of the malleable nature of the material, each new number carries traces of the previous bended forms, and the steel becomes increasingly warped. The work confronts material transformation and the accumulation of allegory through simple means, from neutrality through action. Zero—the return to neutrality—is impossible to achieve once the material has been loaded with the history of its transformations.
Concerts, Readings & Performances
|
Performance Program
Paulina Olowska. Alphabet. 2005/12
The performance Alphabet, by Paulina Olowksa (Polish, b. 1976), is inspired by Czech designer Karel Teige's typographic book ABECEDA (which was published in Prague in 1926 and recently reprinted). Referring to the poetics of typography and Eastern European avant-garde tradition, the work involves collaboration with other performers, who curve and stretch their bodies into 26 letters, from A to Z, to construct a new system for conveying meaning. The performance also includes the presentation of short poems by Josef Strau, Frances Stark, and Paulus Mazur. The physicality of text, writing, and the contexts in which words appear are all parts of Olowska’s poetics. Alphabet was first performed in 2005 at Galerie Meerrettich, on the roof of the Kiosk at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin, within a project curated by Josef Strau.
Performers: Katy Pile, Jessie Gold, Daniel Squire, and Kevin Hurley
Concerts, Readings & Performances
|
Performance Program
Guy de Cointet. Five Sisters. 1982/2011; Espahor ledet ko Uluner! 1973/2011
From the late 1960s until his untimely death in 1983, Guy de Cointet, (French, 1934–1983) was an active member of the Los Angeles art scene. Five Sisters is a collage of clichéd exclamations about beauty, self-help, and feigned emotions. Inspired by de Cointet’s compulsive attraction to language, the performance presents the story of five sisters, who busy themselves with the problems and pleasures of modern life on a Sunday afternoon. Discussions about cosmetic surgeons, exotic locales, and New Age tinctures punctuate the simple stage directions. Five Sisters was first performed in 1982 in Los Angeles at the Barnsdall Park Theatre, and it was the last performance to be staged during the artist’s lifetime. De Cointet collaborated with sculptor Eric Orr (1939–1998), who created the stage, lighting, and sound for the original production. In this new production, the lighting and sound are reconstructed by Elizabeth Orr. The restaging of Five Sisters is the result of research conducted by art historian Marie de Brugerolle, as part of If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution, a performance residency program in Amsterdam.
In addition to Five Sisters, Guy de Cointet’s performance Espahor ledet ko Uluner! will be performed by Jane Zingale. Espahor ledet ko Uluner! is a short monologue that departs from Guy de Cointet’s novel of the same name. The piece presents a succession of apparently everyday references, with different moods, in a language invented by the artist.
Performers: Violeta Sanchez, Einat Tuchman, Adva Zakai, and Veridiana Zurita
Research and dramaturgy: Marie de Brugerolle, Direction: Jane Zingale
Light and sound: Elizabeth Orr, Wardrobe: moniquevanheist
Organized by Sabine Breitwieser, Chief Curator, and Ana Janevski, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Frédérique Bergholtz, Director, If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution.
Guy de Cointet. Five Sisters. 1982, remake 2011. Light and sound by Eric Orr. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg. © If I Can't Dance, Amsterdam. Courtesy the estates of Guy de Cointet and Eric Orr