The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the demanding logistics of moving Mike Kelley’s recently-closed show at MoMAPS1.  The show, which will open again next month in Los Angeles, required a multi-day deconstruction process, moving more than 200 individual works, and disassembling some of the show’s enormous sculptures.   “It’s one of the most complex exhibitions we’ve ever undertaken,” said PS1’s Peter Eleey, “It’s a very fine-toothed coordination.” (more…)

For the first time in 25 years, MoMA’s PS1 campus will play host to a full-building retrospective, focusing on the work of the late Mike Kelley this October.  The retrospective first debuted at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam last year, featuring over 200 works from Kelley’s body of work. (more…)

CODA, Party Wall (Installation View), via MoMA PS1

The Young Architects Program, presented jointly by MoMA and MoMA PS1, challenges young professionals and recent graduates alike in its annual competition to design an installation for MoMA PS1’s courtyard. Each year, the winning design is fabricated and opened to the public during the summer months. The jury takes environmental sustainability heavily into account when choosing the design, which is an especially relevant criterion considering that EXPO 1, the ecology and politics-focused three-venue event, is currently on view at PS1. This year’s winning entry, Party Wall by the Ithaca-based firm CODA, features a semi-permeable skin made from skateboard manufacturing by-products mounted upon a frame of steel beams.

CODA, Party Wall Rendering, via MoMA PS1 (more…)

Taiyo Kimura, Performance Study With Plastic Bag (1997), via MoMAPS1

In the hustle and bustle of the art fairs and auctions of the two weeks prior, the opening of MoMA’s EXPO 1: New York went almost unnoticed, despite its three-venue makeup that includes modules at the museum’s midtown location, the PS1 annex in Queens, and at the newly built VW dome in the Far Rockaway, all which explore new conceptions of ecology and politics in the post-millenial landscape.

Steve McQueen, Static (2009), via MoMAPS1 (more…)

MoMA’s PS1 campus in Long Island City, Queens, has received $3 million in funding from the city of New York, needed to purchase an adjacent building for expansion.  The new space, located at 22-01 Jackson Ave., will potentially be utilized for museum office space, freeing the main building up for more exhibition spaces.  “You want dynamic institutions like MoMA PS 1 to continue to change, to progress and to grow, and they can’t do that without the physical expansion,” Said City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer. “I think it’s great for the neighborhood, it’s great for Long Island City.” (more…)

EXPO 1, an exhibition of works addressing the ecological and political challenges of contemporary society co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Klaus Biesenbach, is set to open at MoMA PS1 this May, presented in conjunction with Triple Canopy.  The large-scale, multiple-module collaborative project will open May 12th with Dark Optimism, a curated show featuring works by 35 artists, including Joseph Beuys, Adrián Villar Rojas, Meg Webster, Agnes Denes, and Anna Betbeze that seeks to explore the dissonance between modernist politics and 21st century society. (more…)

Artist Cyprien Gaillard is featured in the New York Times’ T Magazine, talking about his practice, inspiration, and development as an artist, as well as his viewpoints on the cultural processes that inform his work. “For me, decay is a starting point. I don’t just record it or picture it. What I’m interested in is creating a form of equilibrium within the decay.”  He says. (more…)

MoMA PS1 has announced that it will host an exhibition focusing on the current state of the environment, alongside notions of political and social change.  Titled EXPO 1: New York, the exhibition will include a selection of video, art and photo installations at PS1, as well as a component at the new VW dome in the Rockaways.  EXPO 1 “focuses on some of the most pressing issues of the day set against a backdrop of economic and socio-political concerns that have made a dramatic impact on daily life.”  Says Director Klaus Biesenbach. (more…)

Cyprien Gaillard, Artefacts (2011), via MoMA PS1

Over the past several years, French artist Cyprien Gaillard has created a body of work that negotiates the complex spatio-political, geographical and cultural maps of contemporary culture.  Continuously revisiting themes of decay, flux, erosion and conflict, his work picks through the saturated visual landscape of modernity, and exposes the interlocking mechanisms of destruction and creation at work, as well as the grey area between these polar states. (more…)

MoMA PS1 is reportedly working with city officials to bring a large-scale performance dome to the Rockaways in an effort to help raise funds for the neighborhood that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.  While little news has been released, funding for the dome has apparently been acquired from Volkswagen. (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 have announced the winner of the 14th annual Young Architects Program.  Titled “Party Wall,” the design features an enormous set of walls incorporating repurposed skateboard wood, detachable benches, and an intricately designed water system to provide shade, seating and hydration for PS1’s Warm-Up series this summer.   The structure was designed by Ithaca, NY-based architecture firm, CODA.  “CODA’s proposal was selected because of its clever identification and use of locally available resources—the waste products of skateboard-making—to make an impactful and poetic architectural statement within MoMA PS1′s courtyard,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. (more…)

MoMA PS1 Curator Peter Eleey on the upcoming ‘September 11’ exhibition at PS1: “Probably the biggest difficulty that 9/11 poses to art, at least to visual art, is contained in the ‘spectacularity’ of the attacks themselves.” [AO Newslink]

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Installation view of Ryan Trecartin’s “Any Ever”. All images Ian Hassett for Art Observed.

More images and text after the jump… (more…)

Francis Alÿs, Modern Procession (2002), via PS1

Initiated in collaboration with, and previously presented at, Tate Modern, London and WIELS Centre of Contemporary Art, Brussels, Francis Alÿs’s survey show entitled ‘Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception’ is now on view through August 1 at both MoMA and MoMA PS1. Largely drawing upon MoMA’s collection of works from the Belgium-born artist and grouped around three recent acquisitions—Re-enactments (2001), When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), and Rehearsal I (Ensayo I) (1999–2001)—the New York iteration of ‘Franicis Alÿs: A Story of Deception’ brings together a sizeable amount of the artist’s works, which characteristically emphasize performance and repetition with results that range from absurd to stunning.

More images and text after the jump… (more…)