newyorklongislandcity

P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue
718-784-2084
Long Island City
Tenth Annual Young
Architects Program
June 30-September 14, 2009

The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center announce the winner of the 2009 MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program: the architectural firm MOS. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the program, which affords emerging architectural talents the opportunity to design and present innovative projects. Five finalists selected by an invited nomination process were asked to present an urban landscape for the large courtyard entrance of P.S.1, with the allotted project budget of $70,000. The architects were required to incorporate elements of shade, water, seating, and bar areas into a proposed project. MOS’s winning landscape, afterparty, will be on view in P.S.1’s outdoor courtyard starting in late June, and will serve as an immersive environment for the 2009 Warm Up summer music series.

Envisioned as an “urban shelter,” afterparty will serve as a cooling escape at the heart of P.S.1’s Warm Up music series. Before visitors enter the courtyard, a series of tall hut-like “chimneys” with dark thatched skin will be visible from the street. The interior of the conical shelter will provide shade, similar to a Bedouin tent in which the dark textile creates its own microclimate shielding from the summer heat. Cool air from the thermal mass of the courtyard's shaded concrete walls and concrete water troughs located in the center of the structure will be drawn up through a series of cooling chimneys by induction. This will create a breeze and a "cool down" atmosphere for the active Warm Up crowd.

In addition to MOS (New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts), the other finalists are !ndie architecture (Denver, Colorado), Bade Stageberg Cox (Brooklyn, New York), L.E.FT architects (New York, New York), and PARA-project (Brooklyn, New York). An exhibition of the five finalists' proposed projects will be on view at MoMA over the summer. It will be organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

Barry Bergdoll, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA, explains, “The project proposes to deal with issues of sustainability and a return to basics, working towards climate altering through passive means, even in the context of an exhibition/party space in the P.S.1 courtyard. It consists of a lightweight aluminum frame of recyclable parts clad in a weave, allowing some light and air to circulate but at the same time shading visitors from the sunlight. Its combination of forms includes tall, chimney-like shapes, heroic cones, and others that are evocative at once of the vernacular village structures world-wide and of the open ruined vaults of the Roman Forum.”

Antoine Guerrero, P.S.1 Director of Operations and Exhibitions, adds, “From the ground up, another exciting, ephemeral transformation of our outdoor galleries will leave a lasting impression on over 50,000 summer visitors who will have the chance to cool off.”

MOS architects Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith say, “Today, we are rethinking and resituating architecture — not only its conceptual and formal economies but also its inherent ability to engage and produce visceral intimate environments. This project, afterparty, is a temporary urban shelter and passive cooling station for P.S.1 and its Warm Up events, creating an escape from the summer heat and constructing a network of large, medium, and small cellular spaces that allow for intimacy and social formations to thrive.”

For the Young Architects Program 2009 selection process, MoMA and P.S.1 invited outside experts in the field of architecture, including architects, curators, academics, and magazine editors, to nominate the finalists from a pool of approximately 40 candidates that included both recent graduates and established architects experimenting with new styles or techniques. After reviewing the candidates, five finalists were selected to present proposals to a panel composed of Glenn D. Lowry, Director; Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director; Peter Reed, Senior Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs; Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator, Department of Architecture and Design; Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media; and Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art; and Antoine Guerrero, Director of Operations and Exhibitions, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

This marks the twelfth summer that P.S.1 has hosted a combined architectural installation and music series in its outdoor galleries, though it is only the tenth year of the Young Architects Program, which began in 2000. The inaugural project was an architecturally based installation in 1998 by an Austrian artist collective, Gelatin. In 1999, Philip Johnson’s DJ Pavilion celebrated the historic affiliation of P.S.1 and MoMA. The previous winners of the Young Architects Program are SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli (2000), ROY (2001), William E. Massie (2002), Tom Wiscombe / EMERGENT (2003), nARCHITECTS (2004), Xefirotarch (2005), OBRA (2006), Ball-Nogues (2007), and WORKac (2008).

MOS is an interdisciplinary practice engaging in architecture and design through an inclusive methodology of research, expansive collaboration, and extensive experimentation. The work develops through research ranging from typology, digital production, structure, material, program and use, to larger networks of social, cultural, and environmental consideration. The scope of MOS's research constantly shifts and expands as each individual project has the potential to engage a unique set of parameters, specific to its condition. This process of "radical inclusion" allows MOS to participate in design at different scales — from product design, to private residences, to cultural institutions to large-scale urban infrastructure.

Led by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample, MOS is based in New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts. MOS has received the P/A award, New York Urban League Emerging Voices series, •Surface• magazine's Avant-Guardian, and Architectural Record's Design Vanguard award. Current projects include a villa for Ordos 100, Inner Mongolia, China; The Ballroom Drive-In theater, Marfa, Texas; an inflatable factory in Newfoundland, Canada; and a Teen Center, Lowell, Massachusetts. Michael Meredith is an Associate Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Hilary Sample is an Assistant Professor at the Yale University School of Architecture.

Michael Joaquin Grey, Perpetual ZOOZ, 2005, Computational cinema with stereo sound, computer, custom software designed with R. Luke DuBois, edition of 5.

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue
718-784-2084
Long Island City
Drawing Gallery, first floor
Michael Joaquin Grey
June 28, 2009-September 14, 2009

The work of Michael Joaquin Grey has bridged the boundaries between art, science, media, and the imagination for the last 20 years. His interdisciplinary practice revolves around the development and origins of life and language, as well as morphology. The self organizing principles of living and nonliving things, from muscle cells up to cultural phenomena, are among the diverse concerns that Grey's work examines. Featuring wall vinyl, computational videos, sculptures, and prints, the exhibition investigates critical moments in natural phenomena and culture with a nearly scientific eye, all the while testing the very limits and boundaries of the tools required in such study.

Works on view thematically demonstrate the artist's interest in the development of language, living things, and strategic organic systems. Many works relate to the principles of growth and transformation, as seen in Object as preposition (1988-2007) which visualizes how throughout art history the object became part of a performative process in relational aesthetics. Body signals are a recurrent theme; the human heartbeat is used in Perpetual ZOOZ (2005-09), as well as the artist's own biological material in Artificial Muscle (1983-2001), where a sample of Grey's muscle cells is used to create a contracting mass in a test tube.

The computational cinematic projection Perpetual ZOOZ is the primary work in the exhibition, which incorporates two versions of The Wizard of Oz. One version of the movie plays in time with his mother's heartbeat and the other plays in reverse, in accordance with Grey's heart. The projection is designed in a way that both versions of the movie are presented in a sculptural form, like two sides of a spinning coin.

Michael Joaquin Grey (born 1961 in Los Angeles, California) has a BS degree in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University. He is the inventor of ZOOB, an award-winning toy modeling system. His artwork, based around his understanding of genetics, language, and the origins of form, is shown internationally.

For the past 20 years, Michael Joaquin Grey has been creating work that extends and plays with the boundaries of art, science and media. Critical moments in natural phenomenon and culture are objects in his work, as are the prepositional states of change between matter, energy, behavior, and meaning. Grey's creative dialogue engages epistemological and pedagogical creative limitations of the tools and processes we use to observe, learn and play with our world.

Grey's work has been recognized in publications internationally including Artforum, Flash Art, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Leonardo, Artbyte, ID Magazine, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Village Voice, London Telegraph, Wired, Zing Magazine, Art & Auction, and The Wall Street Journal.

Michael Joaquin Grey lives and works in San Francisco and New York. He has had solo shows at Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles (2007), bitforms gallery, New York (2006), Kunsthalle Loppem, Belgium (1995), Lisson Gallery, London (1994), Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York (1991, 1993 and 1994) and has been included in group exhibitions such as Illiterature, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica (2009), Beneath the Underdog, Gagosian Gallery, New York (2007), CUT/FILM Film as Found Object in Contemporary Video, MOCA, North Miami (2004), Public Offerings, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001), 1993 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1993).

Michael Joaquin Grey is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art and Chief Curatorial Advisor, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

Michael Joaquin Grey, Self-Organizing System: Artificial Muscle Contraction, 1984-2005, DVD, LCD screen, plexiglas, 4.6 x 5.5 x 1.6", edition of 10.

Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954-66), Film, Courtesy the artist.

Kenneth Anger, Invocation of my Demon Brother (1969), Film, Courtesy the artist.

Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954-66), Film, Courtesy the artist.

Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising (1963), Film, Courtesy the artist.

P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue
718-784-2084
Long Island City
Kenneth Anger
February 22-
September 14, 2009

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents Kenneth Anger, the first major survey of the filmmaker’s body of work at a U.S. museum in over a decade. Making films since 1947, Anger is considered internationally as a pioneering and influential force in avant-garde cinema. His ground breaking films have inspired the likes of Martin Scorsese, Gus Van Sant, and Guy Maddin. The exhibition will focus primarily on Anger’s early iconic works including Fireworks (1947), Puce Moment (1949), Eaux D’Artifice (1953), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954-66), Scorpio Rising (1963), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1964 -65), Invocation of my Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1970-81). The exhibition is presented in the 2nd floor Kunsthalle.

Kenneth Anger’s work constitutes a radical critique of Hollywood, often evoking and referencing pop icons within occult settings and depicting youth counterculture in the midst of violence and eroticism. Anger does not use a narrative-based style, but rather lyrically explores themes of ritualistic transformation and transfiguration. His films are imbued with a baroque splendor stemming from the heightened sensuality of his opulent colors and imagery. They are often accompanied by a haunting soundtrack, composed by renowned musicians such as Mick Jagger and Bobby Beausoleil.

The exhibition design, consisting primarily of red and silver vinyl partitions and wall and floor coverings, is evocative of the atmosphere of Anger’s films. It extends the sumptuous settings that are depicted on screen into the exhibition space, creating an immersive viewing experience.

Kenneth Anger (b. 1927, Santa Monica, California) has been creating films since the 1940s with his first being Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941). Anger’s six-decade-long oeuvre includes most notably Fireworks (1947), Puce Moment (1949), Eaux d'artifice (1953), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954-66), Scorpio Rising (1963), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), Lucifer Rising (1970-81)), Rabbit's Moon (1950-79), Mouse Heaven (2004), Elliot’s Suicide (2004), and the recent Ich Will! (2008) and Foreplay (2008). He also performs as Technicolor Skull with Brian Butler.

Kenneth Anger is organized by Susanne Pfeffer, Curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art/ P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center Curatorial Advisor with Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media, The Museum of Modern Art/Chief Curatorial Advisor, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

Kenneth Anger, Puce Moments (1949), Film, Courtesy the artist.

Jonathan Horowitz, Recycling Sculpture (World Trade Center Memorial), 2005, Blue tape, replenished newspapers. 109 x 44", Courtesy Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York.

Jonathan Horowitz, Neon Cross for Two, 2007, White neon, 18 x 23", Courtesy Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York.

Jonathan Horowitz, Official Vatican Portrait of Pope Benedict XVI Torn in Half (After Sinéad O'Connor), 2008, Framed c-print. 20 3/4 x 17", Courtesy Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York.

P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue
718-784-2084
Long Island City
Jonathan Horwitz; And/Or
February 22-
September 14, 2009

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents Jonathan Horowitz: And/Or, the first solo exhibition of the New York-based artist at a New York museum. Working in video, sculpture, sound installation, and photography, Horowitz critically examines the cultures of politics, celebrity, cinema, war, and consumerism. The exhibition will include works ranging from the early 1990s to the present, on view in the 1st Floor Main Galleries, with an additional work concurrently on view at The Museum of Modern Art in the 2nd Floor Café.

From found footage, Horowitz visually and spatially juxtaposes elements from film, television, and the media to reveal connections and breakdowns between these overlapping modes of communication. In many works, these concerns are couched in the language of technology. In his video projection Maxell (1990), the image of the well-known videocassette brand logo plays from a tape copied many times over; the word deteriorates into a blur of static as the information on the tape erodes. Horowitz also notes the value systems inherent in media by establishing a sculptural presence for his video works, where VHS tapes and television monitors are positioned as objects on metal stands.

Horowitz repositions news publications like Life and Time, evocative of wholesome American ideals, to draw subversive connections. This critical eye includes current political references: a maudlin oversized novelty figurine is entitled Hillary Clinton is a Person Too (2008). Other work addresses the inverted politics of celebrity activism, whereby celebrities align themselves with particular issues in order to construct and reclaim their identities. Media-generated imagery of icons Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, and Helen Keller, not unlike those used by Warhol, is combined with quotations expressing political conviction, resulting in a new form of humanist Pop portraiture. Horowitz likewise applies this same humanist strategy to his work in other mediums: minimalist-style sculptures such as Tofu on Pedestal in Gallery and Two-Sided Monument similarly communicate the artist’s signature combination of subjectivity, pathos, and humor.

Jonathan Horowitz: And/Or is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media, The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Chief Curatorial Advisor.

Jonathan Horowitz, Portrait of Chrissie Hynde (i hope the Muslims win), 2003, Inkjet print on vinyl. 57 1/2 x 45", Courtesy Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York.

Leandro Erlich, Swimming Pool, 2004, The 21st Century of Art of Kanazawa, Permanent Collection.

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue
718-784-2084
Long Island City
Leandro Erlich: Swimming Pool
October 19, 2008-October 24, 2009

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents Leandro Erlich: Swimming Pool, an extraordinary and visually confounding installation by the Argentine artist Leandro Erlich. Leandro Erlich: Swimming Pool will be on view in P.S.1’s unique, double-height Duplex gallery from October 19, 2008 through April 13, 2009.

Leandro Erlich is known for installations that seem to defy the basic laws of physics and befuddle the viewer, who is introduced into jarring environments that momentarily threaten a sense of balance or space. For this exhibition, Erlich presents one of his most well-known and critically acclaimed pieces, Swimming Pool. Speaking about the project, Erlich says: “When I first visited P.S.1, I remember thinking how perfect the Duplex space would be for the installation of Swimming Pool. This space divided the experience of seeing the work perfectly, and in the correct order. Almost ten years since its creation, Swimming Pool is finally in the exhibition space for which I have always felt is so perfectly suited.”

Erlich has constructed a full-size pool, complete with all its trappings, including a deck and a ladder. When approached from the first floor, visitors are confronted with a surreal scene: people, fully clothed, can be seen standing, walking, and breathing beneath the surface of the water. It is only when visitors enter the Duplex gallery from the basement that they recognize that the pool is empty, its construction a visual trick fashioned by the artist. A large, continuous piece of acrylic spans the pool and suspends water above it, creating the illusion of a standard swimming pool that is both disorienting and humorous.

Leandro Erlich (b. 1973, Buenos Aires) has been exhibiting internationally for over ten years. He has had solo shows at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2003); MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (2006), and Le Grand Café, Centre d’Art Contemporain de Saint-Nazaire (2005). He represented Argentina at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), where he showed Swimming Pool, and was also featured in the Singapore Biennale (2008), the Liverpool Biennial (2008), 7th Havana Biennale (2001), the 7th Istanbul Biennial (2001), the 3rd Shanghai Biennale (2002), the 1st Busan Biennale (2002), and the 26th Bienal de São Paulo (2004). His work will be shown in the upcoming Prospect.1 New Orleans Biennial in 2008. He lives and works in Buenos Aires.

Leandro Erlich, Swimming Pool, 2004, The 21st Century of Art of Kanazawa, Permanent Collection.