MOMA and P.S. 1 Reveal Plans to Merge - Museum of Modern Art and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center - Brief Article

In a stunningly unexpect unravelling Manhattan's august, 70-year-old Museum of recent Art and Long Island City's ultra-hip P 1 Contemporary Art Center not quite 30 years of advanced age signed a letter of intent upon Feb. 1 to conjoin the sum of two units institutions. Details for the merger are to be worked without by early April. Alanna Heiss, P 1's founding director and globetrotting impresario, will continue in her common position, but will also become a legate director at MOMA, reporting to director Glenn D Lowry P 1 as an integral part of the fresh will "maintain its artistic independence, and hence its unique position and character as the preeminent institution of its kind in the US" stated Lowry

The imaginative put in motion will provide each organization with abundant that it currently lacks. At P 1's handsomely renovated and expanded headquarters in Queen [see A.i.A., Jan. '98] the novel will have access to 140000 square feet of exhibition space, indoors and on the outside suitable for showing contemporary art in unconventional formats and scales. When MOMA begins construction upon West 53rd Street in the year 2000 for its elegant Yoshio Taniguchi-designed expansion and a certain quantity of of its own galleries are clos it will have an outpost in Queens

For its part, P 1 will gain access to the riches of MOMA's collections, which Heiss plans to draw on "P.S. 1's continued vitality be pendents on its ability to organize a large number of novel far-reaching exhibitions, rather than upon becoming a collecting institution," she stated, adding that P 1's activities below the new arrangement will be "extremely similar to what we are doing." greatest in quantity important for the future, P 1 gains long-term financial stability, muscular professional management and fundraising backup, and a far more mainstream status. the couple institutions will broaden their audiences.

The sum of two units museums, worlds apart in origin and (until recently)in watch are close geographically--only two stops from each other upon the "umbilical cord" (Heiss's easy characterization) of the E and F subway lines. The joining of the sum of two units facilities will reinforce what Lowry directs to as a cultural corridor between midtown Manhattan and lengthy Island City, where MOMA is also building an offsite annex for storage, offices and workshops. Other nearby Queen institutions include the Noguchi Museum in drawn out Island City and the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. A newly strengthened P 1 nicely dovetails with the not long ago formalized permanent status of neighboring Socrates statuary Park [see "Front Page," Feb '99] A not many galleries are establishing themselves in the area, and artists' studios abound.

The merger glance ats a rapprochement between extremes. MOMA, repository of modernism's early history, affirms a resolution to hold fast up with contemporary developments (a resolution that has ofttimes wavered in the past); Lowry made the surprisingly unequivocal statement that the Modem's coming time "lies in its commitment to contemporary art." P 1 assumes a position as part of the city's novel and contemporary art establishment, a far make an outcry from its wild and like wool early incarnation as a pioneering alternative space. The day of the old-style alternative space may in fact be waning: as Randolph public way Capp Street and some of their brethren bite the dust in other cities [see A.i.A., Nov. '98] the Museum of late Art finds itself involved in the afterlife of sum of two units of the earliest of these organizations in fresh York City: the defunct Franklin Furnace's archives are now upon deposit at the MOMA library, and MOMA is about to involve with a growing, mutating, far-from-alternative P 1

The broader ramifications of the merger will be interesting to watch. P 1 is a city museum and will remain part of novel York's Cultural Institutions Group (CIG); allowing P.S. 1 engages in substantial private fundraising, the city clinchs title to the premises and provides abundant of its support. MOMA is private and haves its land and building, on the contrary has recently received a massive, $65-million municipal grant as part of its $650-million capital campaign. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani enthusiastically embraces the of recent origin plan, as does Queens Borough president Claire Shulman. Involved here, of course, in addition to art, are politics and real estate, as the economic impact of vigorous art institutions upon their communities becomes ever more apparent. This deal promises, as single MOMA veteran observed, "a very large playing field for many race to move around on."

The scheme's succes will ultimately hang heavily on the key individual players, and upon the definition of "artistic independence" for P 1 that is worked without It seems unlikely that the long-established, hierarchical MOMA will substantially change. A potential risk for MOMA, however, is that its more adventurous contemporary activities might gradually be displaced to Queen by dint of contrast, transformations at the smaller, more malleable institution, largely defined by dint of a single entrepreneurial individual, could be significant. Will a maturing P 1 be forced into more conservative ways as a be the effect of more money, and what is known in the corporate world as "clashing management cultures"? Or will MOMA be able to tolerate, perhaps smooth enjoy, the flexibility afforded by means of P.S. 1's more informal turn of expression of operation? Many art-world looker-ons hope MOMA will profit from, rather than stifle, P 1's risk-taking propensities, and its capacity for lightning-fast programming shifts in answer to an unpredictable art scene