Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon

Opens Nov 14

  • Upcoming
  • Exhibition
FF2019_0388_© Jose Caldeira.jpg
Ralph Lemon in Rant #2, 2019. Performance view, Forum do Futuro, Porto, Portugal, 2019. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Jose Caldeira

This major exhibition of artist Ralph Lemon (b. 1952, Cincinnati) features more than sixty artworks made over the last decade across disciplines and marks the debut of several collaborative performances. One of the most significant figures to emerge from New York’s downtown scene, Lemon has expanded the capacity for storytelling across contexts and traditions. Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon comprises dance, drawings, photographs, sculpture, paintings, and video throughout the museum’s expansive third-floor galleries, alongside a synchronous program of live works staged in a dedicated performance space. The centerpiece of the exhibition is Rant redux (2020–24), a major four-channel video and sound installation realized with Kevin Beasley and based on the live performance Rant (2019–ongoing). The performance program includes the US debut of In Proximity (2022) and the New York premiere of Tell it anyway (2024), and invites a series of special guests to respond to Lemon’s drawings from Untitled (The greatest [Black] art history story ever told. Unfinished) (2015–present). Lemon’s work takes the body as an archive of raw emotion, physical labor, and received histories to challenge the ways we have been taught to see the world.

Ralph Lemon is a choreographer, writer, and visual artist based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. His work has been the subject of exhibitions at The Kitchen (2007/2015), Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans (2008), Studio Museum in Harlem (2012) and the Walker Art Center (2006, 2014, 2024). At MoMA, he performed in the Museum’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium for On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century (2010); he organized the performance series Some sweet day (2012); and he led the discursive project Value Talks as an Annenberg Fellow (2013–14). MoMA published the first monograph on his oeuvre, Ralph Lemon (2016) in the Modern Dance series. Lemon is a recipient of three Bessie Awards (1986, 2005, 2016), two Foundation for Contemporary Art Awards (1986, 2012), a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship and Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2012). In 2015, he received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama. He is a 2018 recipient of the Heinz Family Foundation Award and a 2020 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Lemon won the Bucksbaum Award for his contribution to the 2022 Whitney Biennial. His works are in the permanent collections of institutions including the Walker Art Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Dates

November 14, 2024–March 24, 2025

2024-11-14
2025-03-24

Location

MoMA PS1

22-25 Jackson Avenue Queens, NY 11101

Credits

Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon is organized by Connie Butler, The Agnes Gund Director, MoMA PS1, and Thomas Lax, Curator, Department of Media and Performance, MoMA, with Kari Rittenbach, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1.

Sponsors

Major support for Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon is provided by Sarah Arison and the Ford Foundation.

Generous support is provided by the Doris Duke Foundation, the Lise M. Stolt-Nielsen Family, and the Wallis Annenberg Director’s Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art.

Significant support is provided by A4 Arts Foundation and the Black Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art.

Additional support is provided by anonymous, James Keith (JK) Brown and Eric Diefenbach, and Zenas Hutcheson. Funding is also provided by the Harkness Foundation for Dance, Katherine Sachs, and Catharine and Jeffrey Soros.

The exhibition is made possible through Mellon Foundation’s generous institutional support.

Schedule

Date

Performance

Nov 14

Nov 16

Tell it anyway

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Dec 14

Jan 11

Feb 15

Mar 8

Untitled (The Greatest [Black] Art History Ever Told), interpreted

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Jan 16

Jan 18

In Proximity

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Feb 20

Feb 22

Mar 1

Ceremonies Out of the Air

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Mar 22

Rant #6

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