NEW YORK, NY.- Beginning in June 2016,
The Museum of Modern Art has reinstalled its second-floor contemporary galleries with three large-scale, single-work installations by contemporary artists Teiji Furuhashi, Nan Goldin, and Tony Oursler. Presented in distinct galleries, the featured works on view are Furuhashi’s Lovers (1994), Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1979-2004), and Oursler’s Imponderable (2015–16). Immersive in their construction and generous in size, the three large-scale galleries provide MoMA’s visitors with a unique opportunity to have deep encounters with these monumental works. The installations join a series of single-artist exhibitions of contemporary artists currently on view at MoMA: Rachel Harrison: Perth Amboy (through September 5, 2016), Bouchra Khalili: The Mapping Journey Project (through August 28, 2016); and at MoMA PS1: Projects 103: Thea Djordjadze (through August 29, 2016); Cao Fei (through August 31, 2016); and Rodney McMillian: Landscape Paintings (through August 31, 2016).
Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency June 11, 2016–February 12, 2017 Contemporary Galleries, second floor
Comprising almost 700 snapshot-like portraits sequenced against an evocative music soundtrack, Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a deeply personal narrative, formed out of the artist’s own experiences around Boston, New York, Berlin, and elsewhere in the late 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. Titled after a song in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, Goldin’s Ballad is itself a kind of downtown opera; its protagonists—including the artist herself—are captured in intimate moments of love and loss. They experience ecstasy and pain through sex and drug use; they revel at dance clubs and bond with their children at home; and they suffer from domestic violence and the ravages of AIDS. “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is the diary I let people read,” Goldin wrote. “The diary is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.” The Ballad developed through multiple improvised live performances, for which Goldin ran through the slides by hand and friends helped prepare the soundtrack—from Maria Callas to The Velvet Underground—for an audience not unlike the subjects of the pictures. The Ballad is presented in its original 35mm format, along with photographs from the Museum’s collection that also appear as images in the slide show. Introducing the installation is a selection of materials from the artist’s archive, including posters and flyers announcing early iterations of The Ballad. Live performances will periodically accompany The Ballad during the course of the Museum’s presentation; performance details will be announced during the course of the exhibition presentation. The installation is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at Large, MoMA, and Director, MoMA PS1; Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, MoMA; and Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography, MoMA.
Tony Oursler: Imponderable June 18, 2016–January 8, 2017 Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery and Contemporary Galleries, second floor
Tony Oursler’s Imponderable offers an alternative depiction of modernism that reveals the intersection of technological advancements and occult phenomena over the last two centuries. Presented in a “5-D” cinematic environment utilizing a contemporary form of Pepper’s ghost—a 19th-century phantasmagoric device—and a range of sensory effects, Imponderable is an immersive feature-length film inspired by Oursler’s own archive of ephemera relating to stage magic, spirit photography, pseudoscience, telekinesis, and other manifestations of the paranormal. Drawing on these objects, Imponderable weaves together a social, spiritual, and empirical history of the virtual image that overlaps with the artist’s own family history. The cast of characters, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, Mina “Margery” Crandon, and members of Oursler’s family, is portrayed by an eclectic ensemble of artists, musicians, and performers, including Kim Gordon, Jim Fletcher, Keith Sanborn, and Constance DeJong. Bringing together Oursler’s ongoing interest in mysticism, psychedelia, popular culture, and media history, the work uses macabre humor and theatrical surrealism to reflect on the irrational relationship between belief systems and the authenticity of images. Imponderable is presented in conjunction with selections from Oursler’s archive relating to the film. The exhibition is organized by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, and Erica Papernik-Shimizu, Assistant Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, MoMA.
This exhibition coincides with Tony Oursler: The Imponderable Archive, on view at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, June 25–October 30, 2016.
Imponderable was originally commissioned and produced by the LUMA Foundation for the Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France, and LUMA Westbau, Zurich, Switzerland, 2015.
Teiji Furuhashi: Lovers July 30, 2016–February 12, 2017
Contemporary Galleries, second floor
Lovers is an immersive, room-sized multimedia installation by Japanese artist Teiji Furuhashi (1960–1995). Life-sized images of the artist and other members of the Kyoto-based artist collective Dumb Type are projected onto the walls of a darkened room from a tower of computercontrolled video and slide projectors at its center. The figures move like specters around the perimeter of the space, in a looped choreographic sequence made variable by a visitor-activated sensor, which intervenes to restart one of the projections when triggered. Confined to their autonomous projections, these eponymous “lovers” overlap at moments within the sequence, whether running past each other or pausing in a gesture of embrace, yet their bodies never make contact. Made just one year before Furuhashi's death from an AIDS-related illness, Lovers speaks to what the artist has described as “the theme of contemporary love in an ultra-romantic way.” Presented for the first time since its inaugural exhibition at MoMA in 1995, the installation showcases the results of an extensive conservation effort recently completed by the Museum's media conservators. The installation is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at Large, MoMA, and Director, MoMA PS1; Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, MoMA; and Cara Manes, Assistant Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA.
