MoMA PS1

MoMA PS1, not-for-profit contemporary art centre, affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), located in a former primary school in Long Island City, Queens, New York.

When Alanna Heiss founded the Institute for Art and Urban Resources (IAUR; PS1’s original name) in 1971, its primary function was to convert unused and dilapidated buildings in New York City into studio and exhibition spaces for artists. One such space was the Clocktower Gallery, which Heiss founded in 1972 on the 13th floor of a municipal building in Lower Manhattan. She continued to run some 12 art spaces, but in 1976 she found a permanent location for IAUR in Long Island City. The 1893 brick Renaissance-revival building formerly housed a primary school, and the organization was renamed after it, becoming P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. In 2000 P.S.1 began its formal association with New York’s MoMA. Four years later Heiss founded Art Radio WPS1.org, an Internet radio station that featured music and interviews, in the Clock Tower building. Heiss retired from P.S.1 in 2008, ending the Clocktower Gallery’s affiliation with MoMA and maintaining the radio station as her own. Soon afterward P.S.1 was renamed MoMA PS1.

Taking a progressive approach to exhibition, PS1 displays artworks in unexpected places throughout the indoor and outdoor exhibition space, including bathrooms, stairwells, and the boiler room. Other works, such as James Turrell’s Meeting (1986), a conceptual skylight designed to enhance the colours of the sky at dusk, are part of the building itself. In addition to displaying contemporary paintings, sculptures, and photographs, the art centre exhibits video, sound, and mixed-media works.