VW's Partnership with MOMA's PS1

The Museum of Modern Art draws a cool crowd.  Even cooler is PS1, MoMA's exhibition-only space in Queens that is dedicated to contemporary art, experimental and adventurous work. It's the place where the "beyond edgy" happens.  Last week we attended a press conference about an upcoming VW-sponsored exhibition.

The evening included a sampling of the Kraftwerk Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, which was also sponsored by VW.  It was great fun to listen to the music of this influential electronic band, who were pioneers in technopop. I was with two Kraftwerk enthusiasts.  One friend, Fred Staab, had actually done a recording session with the band.  We stood in the dome outside of the museum and listened to the music, and were surrounded by big screens that displayed incredible Kraftwerk graphics.  The retrospective took place on eight nights in April at PS1. It was an exciting evening, listening to music in this portable dome and following room by room the incredible range of art installations by artist Lara Favaretto.  Favaretto has a playfulness and a seriousness about her work that is impressive--worth the trip to see the automated car wash brushes expand and contract in a syncopated ballet of movement.  Making me think harder about opening that carwash, drive-in thing I've been thinking about. 

PS1 is working on a major survey of international contemporary art, called "New Information: Art at the Beginning of a New Now" that is scheduled to be presented in the spring of 2013 and will tour the globe.  VW is sponsoring this major undertaking. "New Information," says Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large of MoMA, "is an exhibition engaging artistic practices that are dealing with the aesthetic, political and ecological challenges between the wish to innovate and the wish to preserve."  I think the underlying core of this exploration is the our age of too much information.  For the first time in history, we're asking, "how do we manage TMI?"

 

VW also sponsors MoMA's online courses.  Beginning June 4, you can take Experimenting with Collage, Materials and Techniques of Postwar Abstract Painting, Modern Art, 1880–1945, Modern and Contemporary Art: 1945–1989.  These courses cost $300/350 for an eight or ten week course with access to other students and instructors, weekly online discussions and forums or $200/275 for self-guided, which you can access at anytime.

There are free course for teens but they are held at the museum. I wish they had free online access for the teen programs.  I know so many kids who can't get to NYC who would benefit from these classes.