New York Crossings

The performances conducted by the late Filipino artist Roberto Villanueva (1947–1995) prompted the effects and the facture of ritual. In 1989, a sprawling circular labyrinth constructed out of eight-foot runo reeds occupied the grounds of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in Metro Manila. Inspired by a pattern found in the Cordilleran rice fields of northern Luzon, the labyrinth orchestrated a walk, or dance, toward the center, where one found a circular pit lined with river stones and presided over by totemic figures like the bulul, a carved wooden sculpture representing a guardian spirit. The center was an area resembling a dap-ay, a place for gatherings and rites, traditionally the foundation of Cordilleran learning. Archetypes: Cordillera Labyrinth, like many of Villanueva’s works, combined installation, chanting, magical invocations, and other ritualistic tropes drawn from Indigenous sources.

Like the subject of his world-renowned installation The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment (1981–88), artist Ilya Kabakov is no longer with us. While this reality was inevitable, pronouncing it still remains difficult. The giant hole in the ceiling of this installation—left by its protagonist, who abandoned his isolated Soviet existence by catapulting…

From August 2022 to June 2023, artists and friends Julie Tolentino and Kang Seung Lee reflected on their decades-long practices in kinship, politics, performance, and queer history.

In this interview, recorded a few months before Davidovich’s passing, curator Ana Janevski talks with the Argentine-American artist about his career, his early days in New York City and Cleveland, and his work Tape Wall Project (1970/1988), recently acquired by MoMA. This is the second of two parts. Read the first part of the interview…

The session explores New York as a site of intersections of artists from around the world who have passed through or settled in the city.

Andra Silapētere introduces two key figures of the Hell’s Kitchen group of Latvian exile artists in New York. The work of the group will be featured in an exhibition at James Gallery of the CUNY Graduate Center as part of a series of exhibitions on Latvian emigrant artistic communities, Portable Landscapes, organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art.

American textile designer Joel Robinson remains an enigmatic figure despite his inclusion in MoMA’s collection. Robinson’s story, in many ways, mirrors the story of so many others featured in the’Good Design’ series, whose promising careers never gained the traction that such a recognition might reward.

This text is a reimagined transcription of a series of conversations between Prabha Sahasrabudhe and Indira Gandhi that took place in 1960 at the Westbury Hotel in New York City.The reason for their meetings was to discuss bringing an adaptation of MoMA’s Children’s Art Carnival to India.

The interview with Zarina considers the artist’s life and work as a bridge between New Delhi and New York.

In this interview, recorded a few months before Davidovich’s passing, curator Ana Janevski talks with the Argentine-American artist about his career, his early days in New York City and Cleveland, and his work Tape Wall Project (1970/1988), recently acquired by MoMA. This is the first of two parts. Read the second part here. ANA JANEVSKI:…

MoMA PS1 Associate Curator Jenny Schlenzka on the Taiwanese artist’s innovative posters documenting some of his extreme performances in New York City in the 1980s. The four posters in the collection of MoMA’s Library are part of One Year Performance 1981–1982 by Tehching Hsieh (Taiwanese, born 1950). To complete this work, which is often referred to as Outdoor…

Since around 1977 when Gilbert and Lila Silverman began to develop their Fluxus Collection, Jon Hendricks has played a central role in fostering the formation of that renowned collection that bears their names.