Every five years since 2000, MoMA PS1 in Queens has presented an up-to-the-minute survey of contemporary artists living and working in and around New York City. Called Greater New York, the show, in addition to just being a massive, entertaining, thought-provoking museum exhibition, has also provided a handy snapshot of what is happening in the immediate art world at that moment.
The pandemic forced MoMA PS1 to delay the fifth iteration of Greater New York by a full year, but starting October 7th the exhibition is finally opening in Long Island City. And though there are far fewer artists and collectives represented this time around than had become the show's standard--47, or about a third as many as in 2015--there are still more than 300 works on display here, spread out over three floors, making Greater New York feel as varied and exhaustive as ever.
Kate Fowle, the Director of PS1 and one of the show's four curators, told Gothamist that "the pandemic quite dramatically changed the way we could do our initial research; basically we had to pivot to doing a lot of studio visits on Zoom, which meant building quite a different relationship to artists. It's not like you're walking around the studio and you can kind of point to something or have a visceral response to the work, it takes a lot more talking. And you tend to get to know the artists better as people that way."
There's no single theme to this or any other Greater New York show, but Fowle pointed to "two threads that are quite strong in the exhibition: one is around documentary and the archive, and the other is around surrealism. And what we found interesting is that, while the methods may follow one or the other, there are many artists that are actually bringing surrealism and documentary together" in their final works.
There's a lot to take in here, but a few of my favorites from this week's preview included Ahmed Morsi's colorful paintings, usually featuring dopey-looking horses; the Canal Street collective Shanzhai Lyric's installations investigating "informal economies and the poetics of counterfeit goods;" the journalistic photographs of the city in the 1970s and '80s by Marilyn Nance and Hiram Maristany; and Alan Michaelson's mesmerizing "Midden," for which the Mohawk artist projects videos of Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal onto three tons of dried oyster shells as a Native call-and-response song plays in the background.
Give yourself some time to take it all in. As Fowle said, "we've all experienced seeing things online during the distancing of the pandemic, but there's nothing like actually being in front of artworks, in person, and coming to your own conclusions about what you think and feel about the work. So I'm excited for people to have a chance and do that."
Greater New York runs through April 18th, 2022 at MoMA PS1. Advanced timed tickets are available now, admission is $10 for adults, and proof of vaccination and masks are required.
