MoMA
Posts tagged ‘Artists Experiment’
Would You Like to Come Breathe with Me at MoMA Studio?
MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me Opening event on Friday, May 16, 2014. Photo by Sarah Kennedy, MoMA staff member.

MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me Opening event on Friday, May 16, 2014. Photo: Sarah Kennedy

Last Friday, May 16, we celebrated the opening of MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me, an interactive space that has been organized in conjunction with the exhibition Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988, on view in the sixth-floor galleries through August 24, 2014. Taking Clark’s art as a reference point, the Studio presents a series of drop-in programs, participatory experiences, and artist-led workshops that explore the intersections between art, therapeutic practice, and the ways in which we relate to objects and people through physical encounters.

Like all previous MoMA Studios, MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me is a free, interactive space open to visitors of all ages, and offers experiential learning experiences that complement looking and talking about works of art in the galleries, allowing for engagement with art in hands-on, creative ways. Visitors can experiment, learn, play, and create as they make connections between their lives, their own creativity, and the processes and materials of modern and contemporary art.

Visitors using Lygia Clark's sensorial object called Living Structures, made up of elastic bands connecting participants in a giant flexible web. Photo by Sarah Kennedy

Visitors using Lygia Clark’s sensorial object called Living Structures, made up of elastic bands connecting participants in a giant flexible web. Photo: Sarah Kennedy

The process of putting this particular MoMA Studio together has been a unique experience due to the nature of Lygia Clark’s work, which is often dynamic and sensorial in nature—a quality that is highlighted in the exhibition itself, which has a central component that is about engaging the public in participatory ways within the galleries. This aspect of the exhibition parallels the planning of our Studio programming and has allowed for a fruitful collaboration with the curatorial team and the exhibition facilitators.

In developing the focus and scope of MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me, and in the hopes of revealing the profound resonance Clark’s work has had with contemporary artists, we have collaborated with a talented group of artists from near and far, to present an exciting series of programs for this MoMA Studio. These artists include Ricardo Basbaum, Carlito Carvalhosa, Stephanie Diamond and Tamara Vanderwal, Michel Groisman, Jeanine Oleson, and Allison Smith.

Visitors trying Lygia Clark's proposition, Caminhando on the rug at MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me with Allison Smith's Joining Screens project as a backdrop. Photo by Sarah Kennedy

Visitors trying Lygia Clark’s proposition, Caminhando, on the rug at MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me with Allison Smith’s Joining Screens project as a backdrop. Photo: Sarah Kennedy

Perhaps more than previous Studios, this one is conceived as a space that comes alive most with the activation of the workshops and events by willing participants, in collaboration with artists. This week the workshops kicked off with Carlito Carvalhosa’s public action in the The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and MoMA Studio on May 20 and 21, followed by Michel Groisman’s Polvo and Sirva-Se workshops, which begin tomorrow, May 22 and run through the Memorial Day weekend. We are following Clark’s philosophy, “the work is in the act,” and we invite you all to join us! Visit MoMA.org/MoMAstudio for details.

Museum as Laboratory: Artists Experiment

What happens when the Museum turns into a laboratory for artists?

This year MoMA’s Department of Education invited artists Allison Smith, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and the creative collective The Office for Creative Research to be part of the second year of Artists Experiment, an initiative to develop public engagement experiences through collaboration with contemporary artists. Exploring MoMA’s history, resources, and spaces, each of these artists approaches the Museum like a laboratory—a place for thinking, collaborating, and experimenting with the museum experience and our visitors.

Allison Smith. Troops Drilling at Fort Jay, part of The Muster project. 2005. Photo: Amy Elliot

Allison Smith. Troops Drilling at Fort Jay, part of The Muster project. 2005. Photo: Amy Elliot

San Francisco–based artist Allison Smith’s work investigates the cultural phenomenon of historical reenactment, or “living history,” using it as a means of addressing the relationship between American history, social activism, and craft.

Paul Ramirez Jonas. Key to the City. 2010. Image courtesy of Paul Ramirez Jonas

Paul Ramirez Jonas. Key to the City. 2010. Image courtesy of Paul Ramirez Jonas

At MoMA, Allison is researching the history of the Department of Education, specifically exploring the work and programs developed by MoMA’s first director of education, Victor D’Amico. Allison is considering how MoMA’s rich history can speak to our current education practices, mining strategies and ideas from the past to inspire new experiences at the Museum today.

Brooklyn-based artist Paul Ramirez Jonas is interested in articulating shared stories and histories, working with and transforming different forms of public art and public symbols.

Paul has been looking at the visitor experience at MoMA, exploring public spaces designed for interaction including the bookstore and the Museum’s information desks.

He asks the question, how can we build on the visitor experience at MoMA.

New York–based collective The Office for Creative Research (O-C-R) includes artists and data experts Jer Thorp, Ben Rubin, and Mark Hansen, a multidisciplinary research group exploring new modes of engagement with data, through unique practices that borrow from science, technology, and the arts.

The Office of Creative Research. And That's The Way It Is. 2012. Image courtesy of the artists

The Office for Creative Research. And That’s The Way It Is. 2012. Image courtesy of the artists

O-C-R is looking at massive amounts of information from the Museum’s collection database. From image titles to notes on how to install a work, O-C-R is thinking about how this data can be explored and activated by Museum visitors to facilitate interaction, learning, and exchange.

What can you expect?

Throughout the winter and spring, Artists Experiment will present a range of programs and interactions developed with each of these artists. To kick things off, we invite you to join us for the January 29 launch event, Social Exchange: Artists’ Reception. This special event is a chance to meet the artists in person and get a little taste of what’s to come. The Office for Creative Research and Allison Smith are creating an interactive, performative work for the evening, and Chef Lynn Bound is preparing a special menu in collaboration with Paul Ramirez Jonas. We hope you’ll join us for this warm, winter celebration!

Look out for other upcoming Artists Experiment programs at MoMA.org/artistsexperiment.

October 17, 2013  |  Events & Programs, Learning and Engagement
(FAQ) Frequently Asked Questions
Info_Desk

Photograph courtesy of Paul Ramirez Jonas

As part of my research for Artists Experiment, I went to MoMA to sit side by side with the volunteers that staff the information desks. I was not 100% sure what I would find, but my instincts told me that there was something interesting about the situation

October 16, 2013  |  Learning and Engagement
Combining Poetry with Visual Art to See (and Feel) in a New Way

Kenneth Goldsmith performs a guerilla reading in the MoMA galleries.

Kenneth Goldsmith performs a guerilla reading in the MoMA galleries. Photo: Jackie Armstrong

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci

When visiting a museum, especially in New York City, it’s easy to wander around without pausing to look at specific works of art. After all, there’s so much to see and crowds to contend with.

September 20, 2013  |  Learning and Engagement
MoMA Studio: Exchange Café—What Do You Exchange?

Organized in collaboration with Caroline Woolard, a Brooklyn-based artist who participated in MoMA’s inaugural Artists Experiment initiative, MoMA Studio: Exchange Café was designed to be a social space focused on exchanged-based practices. Taking the form of a café, the Studio encouraged visitors to question notions of reciprocity, value, and property through shared experiences.

July 9, 2013  |  Events & Programs
2013 Poet Laureate Wrap-Up
Vito Acconci and Maria Mirabal

A Guerrila Reading by Vito Acconci and Maria Mirabal in the exhibition Hand Signals: Digits, Fists, and Talons, June 26, 2013. Part of Uncontested Spaces: Guerrilla Readings in MoMA Galleries

It’s been a remarkable year for poetry at MoMA. I threatened to slather the Museum with poetry, and I did. By the time it was finished, I brought over 125 poets, novelists, essayists, artists, and musicians into MoMA to do public interventions.

July 2, 2013  |  Artists, Events & Programs
Embodying the Archive: Xaviera Simmons on Archive as Impetus (Not on View)
An Archive as Impetus performance in MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Photograph courtesy of Xaviera Simmons)

An Archive as Impetus (Not on View) performance in MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Photograph by Martin Seck

Plenty of people think of museums, libraries, and archives as stagnant and apolitical places; sites where histories are not created, but simply preserved. In her performance Archive as Impetus (Not on View)—presented several times per week during the month of June as part of MoMA’s Artists Experiment initiative—artist Xaviera Simmons asked viewers to reconsider the role of the museum.

June 20, 2013  |  Artists, Events & Programs
Living History: Xaviera Simmons and Archive as Impetus
An Archive as Impetus performance in MoMA's Agnes Gund Garden Lobby. Photograph courtesy of Xaviera Simmons

An Archive as Impetus performance in MoMA’s Agnes Gund Garden Lobby. Photograph courtesy of Xaviera Simmons

What do women artists want?

This question is announced through a microphone, repeated—carrying out into MoMA’s Garden Lobby and on to the second-floor Marron Atrium as visitors stop, turn, and listen.

Welcome to MoMA Studio: Exchange Café

Exchange Flow Graphic

MoMA Studio: Exchange Café honors the power of reciprocity. From everyday barter practices to artistic exchange systems, I aim to make legible a relationship between works in MoMA’s collection and contemporary movements to reclaim the commons.

March 11, 2013  |  Artists, Events & Programs, Videos
Artists Experiment: Meet Caroline Woolard

Artist, organizer, activist—these are only a few words to describe Caroline Woolard, one of our four collaborators for Artists Experiment. Collaboration and exchange are at the center of Woolard’s practice and this season, we’re bringing these ideas to MoMA’s education programs.