Queens museum MoMA PS1 is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, and it's commemorating the milestone with a full slate of programming and free admission for all visitors.
The Long Island City institution began offering free admission on Jan. 1 after a $900,000 donation from entrepreneur Sonya Yu, becoming New York City’s largest free museum. Admission was previously only free for New Yorkers; other visitors were subject to a suggested admission fee of $10.
The programming, meanwhile, begins in force on April 18 with a 50th anniversary block party featuring various family activities, local food vendors, musical performances across the museum’s campus, and more.
It’ll coincide with the opening weekend of PS1’s building-spanning “Greater New York” survey of over 50 multidisciplinary New York artists, now in its sixth edition. A ticketed party for the survey, with live music and DJ sets, will be held on April 24.
Other half-century programming will include an outdoor commission in the courtyard by artist Precious Okoyomon, a survey of Black artists working in abstraction, an archival exhibition on fashion at PS1, a 50th Anniversary Gala on May 12, Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair in late September and a special season of the museum’s beloved Warm Up summer music series.
Warm Up, which started back in 1998, is “the longest running music series in a museum,” according to a PS1 press release.
PS1 has come a long way over the past 50 years. The museum occupies the site of what was formerly a public school, which had been decommissioned in 1963 and subsequently fell into disrepair. In 1971, curator Alanna Heiss established The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, a group that focused on repurposing the city’s myriad abandoned structures as artist spaces.
In 1976, she opened the PS1 Contemporary Art Center, and it quickly gained traction as an influential alternative New York art space.
The MoMA portion of its name was added in 2010, a decade after it merged with the eponymous modern art museum.
