Being There

I have the good for­tune of liv­ing 2 blocks from  MoMA PS.1, the Queens out­post of the Museum of Mod­ern Art. Look­ing for inspi­ra­tion last week, I took myself on an art date to see their Sum­mer show, Greater New York.

Some crit­ics have panned the exhi­bi­tion, but I think there were a enough gems to make it worth while. It seems  prac­ti­cally impos­si­ble to sum up five years of art in New York, and kind of fool­ish to try, so the cura­tors can be afforded a lit­tle understanding.

Tucked in a back cor­ner on the third floor is Deana Law­son’s giant photo-mural. Lawson’s piece presents a nar­ra­tive made of appro­pri­ated images, a sort of imag­ined fam­ily album, but spread out edge to edge on a gallery wall. I enjoyed div­ing into indi­vid­ual pho­tos, and look­ing for the con­trasts and con­nec­tions between the peo­ple pictured.