MoMA PS1
Address
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave
Long Island City, NY 11101
United States
Hours of Operation
12–6 PM, Thursday through Monday, closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
MoMA PS1 is closed in recognition of the following holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day.
Sunday Sessions, a weekly live program on Sundays from October 5th through May 3rd.
ARTBOOK @ MoMA PS1 and M. Wells Dinette are open during regular gallery hours.
Introduction
MoMA PS1 is one of the largest art institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. It is located in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution also organizes the International and National Projects series, the Warm Up summer music series, and the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program with the Museum of Modern Art. It also ran WPS1, an Internet art radio station, from 2004 to 2009. MoMA PS1 has been affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since January 2000 and, as of 2009, attracts about 150,000 visitors a year.
History
P.S.1 (now MoMA PS1) was founded in 1971 by Alanna Heiss as the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc., an organization with the mission of turning abandoned, underutilized buildings in New York City into artist studios and exhibition spaces. Heiss, the center's former director, was born in 1943 in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in a farming community in southern Illinois. The daughter of teachers, she graduated with a B.A. from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, which she attended on a scholarship from the Lawrence Conservatory of Music.
Recognizing that New York was the worldwide magnet for contemporary artists, and believing that traditional museums were not providing adequate exhibition opportunities for site-specific art, Heiss decided to establish a formal, alternative arts organization. She was working as a contemporary art organizer with various civic organizations when she formed what became a long-term friendship and working relationship with architecture/theater critic Brendan Gill. In 1971, she and Gill founded The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, and began renovating many old abandoned buildings in New York City. That year, Heiss and Gill organized their first alternative exhibition, working with the artist Gordon Matta-Clark in the unused spaces beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Among the sites transformed by the Institute were 10 Bleecker Street, the Coney Island Sculpture Museum, and the Idea Warehouse in TriBeCa. Later in 1973, the Clocktower Gallery, located in a 13-story municipal Beaux-Arts building at 108 Leonard Street, opened with its inaugural three shows: Joel Shapiro, Richard Tuttle. The Clocktower Gallery became a well-known alternative space and its distinctive location "in the sky near" City Hall made it an icon of one-person shows.
In 1976, Heiss exponentially increased the organization's exhibition and studio capacity by opening the art center in a deserted Romanesque Revival public school building. This building, dating from 1892, served as the first school in Long Island City until 1963, when the First Ward school it housed was closed due to low attendance and the building was turned into a warehouse. In October 1997, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center reopened to the public after a three-year, $8.5 million renovation project designed by Los Angeles-based architect Frederick Fisher, who had been working closely with Heiss and supervised by the New York architect David W. Prendergast. The building's facilities were increased from 84,000 to 125,000 square feet in order to include a large outdoor gallery, a dramatic entryway, and a two-story project space.
In 2008, Heiss left MoMA PS1 and founded Art International Radio, which is unaffiliated with MoMA PS1 but houses programs that originally aired on the now-defunct WPS1. AIR produces its own arts-oriented material.
Kindred Affairs
While the relatively sedate borough of Queens doesn't immediately lend itself to the high-society atmosphere usually associated with the Toreador, the Degenerates nonetheless have a stake in the borough's affairs. P.S.1 is a former public school converted into an art gallery, performance venue and studio space. During the summer, P.S.1 hosts live music performances, DJs, festivals and other events designed to involve the community in the realm of artistic expression. The museum is also affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art (just two stops away by subway).
Toreador interest in the P.S.1 Museum focuses mainly on the community involvement aspect of the art center's mission. While a few effete Toreador embody the worst stereotypes of the clan, harping on this art darling or that socialite's obnoxious refusal to attend some show or an other, those on the forefront of the Camarilla's stabilization effort have a different reason for patronizing the arts. Quite simply, as the ebb and flow of mortal trends are vital to the Toreador unlife-style, the Degenerates in New York have bought into these mortal institutions from the ground floor. While individual Toreador may have their own personal agendas, most of them agree that political power rests with those who have the greatest collective power -a sort of Kindred version of the popular vote, by which a vocal contingent of undead can affect policy with sheer numbers. While the Toreador aren't the most numerous clan in New York, they can certainly be the most vociferous.
For this reason, the Toreador have made P.S.1 the epicenter of their cultural power base. Everyone has left their understood bailiwicks (such as the Museum of Modem Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art) alone and expects them to focus on the highly glamorous Manhattan. By starting with the outer borough and moving into Manhattan, the Toreador may well stand unresisted, possibly assuming the greatest bloc of power in the whole city... if they can hold themselves together long enough to use it aptly.
Websites
http://momaps1.org/ {Official Site}
