DonChristian Jones

As the inaugural Adobe Creative Resident at The Museum of Modern Art, artist and musician DonChristian Jones presents an installation inspired by their Bed-Stuy studio, home to Public Assistants (PA, est. 2020), a space for queer and trans people of color to skill-share, create, and cultivate joy. At MoMA PS1, Jones has created a clandestine study that imagines a portal into their “double life” over the past fifteen years, teaching and painting during the day while rapping and performing at night. The exhibition incorporates design elements inspired by film noir, Blaxploitation films, the Harlem Renaissance, and contemporary Ballroom culture. Extending the artist’s ongoing practice of world-building, the project includes a performance program celebrating Jones’ community of creative practitioners. Staged as an outpost of PA, The Sumptuous Discovery of Gotham a Go-Go offers a place to meet, perform, and conspire.

DonChristian Jones (American, b. 1989) is the inaugural Adobe Creative Resident at MoMA. Jones is a New York–based artist, musician, and producer whose diverse artistic practice spans painting, music, film and video, time-based performance, and public murals, while blending genres of painting and performance installation. They have shown work at venues such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, and The Shed. In the spring of 2020, Jones founded Public Assistants, a community design studio and mutual-aid hub located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.