MoMA unveils sound-focused 2023 program for studio – ARTnews.com
Along with paintings and sculptures by post-war masters, visitors to the Museum of Modern Art in New York next year will be able to see and hear a range of sound-focused works by some of the foremost artists. -artists of today, some of whom will be on hand to perform live in the galleries.
These works will appear at Studio Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis, an experimental art space for performance, video art, film, dance and music that has just unveiled its 2023 programming.
The space, located not far from the galleries where MoMA now showcases works by Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists, has regularly hosted eye-catching works that have received critical acclaim since it opened in 2019.
Nora Turato received positive reviews for a performance piece that was vaguely reminiscent of a TED Talk, Shahryar Nashat staged a piece incorporating video and dance that explored how works of art are perceived, and the experimental dancer Okwui Okpokwasili recently had a residency there. Historical works, including rarely shown installations by video art pioneer Shigeko Kubota, have also been exhibited in the Studio.
Stuart Comer, chief curator of media arts and performance, said in an interview with ART news that the Studio is intended to help envision “the museum as a living and organic place. We reimagine history and also provide an opportunity for emerging artists to find their connections to these stories.
The first in 2023 will be a performance art festival linked to MoMA’s current exhibition of Just Above Midtown, Linda Goode Bryant’s short-lived but hugely influential New York gallery that aimed to stimulate black artists to a a time when few mainstream spaces did. Scheduled for February, this festival will include, among other pieces, the latest work by Senga Nengudi, who collaborated for this with Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees.
In April, alongside MoMA’s first survey of video art in decades, the Studio will host Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s video installation Walled/Unwalled (2018), owned by MoMA. The work features what Abu Hamdan has called “hearing evidence”, the practice of using listening as a form of evidence, and explores legal cases in which sounds heard through partitions such as walls and doors played a crucial role.
After the broadcast of this presentation, in July, the composer and performer Pamela Z will have a residency in which she will design a new cycle of songs Simultaneous, which will also be exhibited as an installation. In September, Suzanne Ciani and Sarah Davachi will perform electronic music works; the pairing is meant to stimulate an intergenerational dialogue between the two, who are roughly 40 years apart, with Ciani often seen as an influential figure for younger artists like Davachi.
The Studio’s program in 2023 will be crowned by a new installation by Alexandre Estrela, whose work flat bells will involve a soundscape and video animations. This piece will explore the relationship between man and machine.
Projects in this year’s program are curated by a series of curators from the Media Arts and Performance Department, including Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, Ana Janevski and Martha Joseph, as well as Sophie Cavoulacos, Associate Curator of the Film Department.
“We’re learning so much about what it means to have a space like this in the museum,” Comer said. “It creates unique questions that will likely impact what we do, even how we collect work.”
