The Museum Of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, And Volkswagen Announce Innovative Partnership

Multi-Year Project Will Support Exhibitions and Education at MoMA and MoMA PS1

New York, —The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, and Volkswagen announced details of a two-year partnership today at a press conference at MoMA. The major components of the partnership are the support for an international contemporary art exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2013, and the expansion of MoMA’s online course offerings beginning in March 2012. It also includes sponsorship of a series of installations in MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and of the exhibition Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, as well as the donation of two works by artist Francis Alÿs to MoMA’s collection.

This unprecedented partnership supports MoMA and MoMA PS1’s leadership role in contemporary art and culture, and our goal of reaching a diverse and global audience.

“We are pleased to have a strong partner in Volkswagen, whose commitment to innovation and education parallels the Museum’s,” said MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry. “This important partnership will enable The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 to realize longstanding goals and ambitious exhibitions and programs.” “Artists give us food for thought and let us look at the world from new angles. MoMA is one of the world’s leading institutions in the field of contemporary art. With its persuasive expertise and its educational mission, it is our partner of choice. This partnership expresses our corporate commitment to take responsibility for the environment and for society”, is how Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, described this cultural partnership.

As part of the partnership with Volkswagen, Mr. Biesenbach will engage in extensive research to scout artists working in multiple mediums throughout the world. A major exhibition filling MoMA PS1’s entire gallery space will open in 2013, highlighting artists who are reacting to the pressing questions of the 21st century with its interrelated ecological, economical, spiritual, ethnographic, political, and social challenges.

“While MoMA PS1 has a long history of presenting work by contemporary artists on an international scale, this partnership will allow us to research, evaluate, and present the most wide-ranging survey of artists working innovatively around the globe,” said Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA.

In 2010, MoMA launched a highly successful pilot program for online courses, which beginning next month, will be offered to a wider audience due to the support from Volkswagen. The Volkswagen partnership will allow for additional online course offerings over a two-year period, and for the development of new education content. The two new online courses to be offered in March 2012 are a course on the evolution of contemporary art from 1945 to today, and an artist-led studio course on experimentation with collage technique that will provide a deeper understanding of materials and processes. Two additional online courses will be developed in the second year of the partnership. Video resources developed in tandem with the course content will be used in future online projects that will be accessible to a global audience.

Another component of the partnership is an on-site Lab Project focused on art processes that produce accessible forms of art, such as prints and artists books. This participatory Lab designed for visitors of all ages, to take place next spring, will directly address issues of distribution, democratic dissemination of art, recycling, and sustainability.
The partnership will support exhibitions in MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden for two years. This space, designed in 1953 by Philip Johnson, is among the city’s most beloved outdoor green spaces. The first installation, on view beginning May 20, 2011, is Figure in the Garden, an exhibition of 18 sculptures from the Museum’s collection, including works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, and Joan Miró. The highlight is a recent acquisition by German artist Katharina Fritsch titled Group of Figures (2006-2008), nine life-size sculptures painted in bold colors that is on view for the first time at the Museum.

The exhibition Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, on view at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 through August 1, 2011, is made possible by the support of Volkswagen. The exhibition draws on MoMA’s unique and important collection of work by artist Francis Alÿs (Belgian, b. 1959), who uses poetic and allegorical methods to explore the social realities of political concepts, including the cyclical nature of change in modernizing societies, the urban landscape, and patterns of economic progress. Alÿs’s personal, ambulatory explorations of cities form the basis for his practice, through which he compiles extensive documentation reflecting his process, producing complex and diverse bodies of work that include video, painting, performance, drawing, and photography.

In addition to serving as the exhibition’s corporate sponsor, Volkswagen has donated two works by Alÿs—Tornado (2000-2010) and Mirage (A Story of Deception) (2003-2006)—to MoMA, both featured in this exhibition.

MoMA and MoMA PS1
The Museum of Modern Art is a place that fuels creativity, ignites minds, and provides inspiration. With extraordinary exhibitions and the world’s finest collection of modern and contemporary art, MoMA is dedicated to the conversation between the past and the present, the established and the experimental. Our mission is helping our visitors understand and enjoy the art of our time.

Founded in 1929 as an educational institution, The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to being the foremost museum of modern art in the world.
Through the leadership of its Trustees and staff, The Museum of Modern Art manifests this commitment by establishing , preserving, and documenting a permanent collection of the highest order that reflects the vitality, complexity and unfolding patterns of modern and contemporary art; by presenting exhibitions and educational programs of unparalleled significance; by sustaining a library, archives, and conservation laboratory that are recognized as internal centers of research; and by supporting scholarship and publications of preeminent intellectual merit.

Founded in 1973 in Long Island City, Queens, and affiliated with MoMA since 2000, MoMA PS1 is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit contemporary art institutions in the United States. An exhibition space rather than a collecting institution, MoMA PS1 devotes its energy and resources to displaying the most experimental art in the world. A catalyst and an advocate for new ideas, discourses, and trends in contemporary art, MoMA PS1 actively pursues emerging artists, new genres, and adventurous new work by recognized artists in an effort to support innovation in contemporary art.

Volkswagen of America, Inc.
Founded in 1955, Volkswagen of America, Inc. is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. It is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany. Volkswagen is one of the world’s largest producers of passenger cars and Europe’s largest automaker. VOLKSWAGENoA sells the Eos, Golf, GTI, Jetta, Jetta SportWagen, CC, Tiguan, Touareg and Routan through approximately 600 independent U.S. dealers. All 2011 Volkswagen vehicles come standard-equipped with Electronic Stability Control (ESC). This is important because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has called ESC the most effective new vehicle safety technology since the safety belt. Visit Volkswagen of America online at www.vw.com.