press release

Surrounds: 11 Installations
Opening on October 21, 2019

MoMA ANNOUNCES EXHIBITION OF LARGE-SCALE, IMMERSIVE INSTALLATIONS

NEW YORK, May 1, 2019— The Museum of Modern Art announces Surrounds: 11 Installations, opening in The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special Exhibitions, in The Peggy and David Rockefeller building, on October 21, 2019. The presentation, spanning the entire sixth floor, presents 11 watershed installations by living artists from the past two decades, all drawn from the Museum’s collection and on view at MoMA for the first time. Each installation occupies its own gallery, providing an individualized, immersive experience.

Surrounds is organized by Quentin Bajac, former Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography, Christian Rattemeyer, Harvey S. Shipley Miller Associate Curator for Drawings and Prints, Yasmil Raymond, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, Sean Anderson, Associate Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, and Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, with the assistance of Lucy Gallun, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, Erica Papernik-Shimizu, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance, Arièle Dionne-Krosnick, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, and Taylor Walsh, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints.

Surrounds includes work by Jennifer Allora (American, b. 1974) and Guillermo Calzadilla (Cuban, b. 1971), Sadie Benning (American, b. 1973), Janet Cardiff (Canadian, b. 1957) and George Bures Miller (Canadian, b. 1960), Sou Fujimoto (Japanese, b. 1971), Sheila Hicks (American, b. 1934), Arthur Jafa (American, b. 1960), Mark Manders (Dutch, b. 1968), Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazilian, b. 1967), Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961), Hito Steyerl (German, b. 1966), and Sarah Sze (American, b. 1969).

Each work included in the exhibition was conceived out of different individual circumstances—as a contribution to a biennial, as an element of a larger ongoing body of work, as a response to a classic work of art history, or as a stand-alone work unrelated to others—but the installations are united in their ambition and scope, marking decisive shifts in the careers of their makers and the broader field of contemporary art.