Art currently Goes to MoMA PS1 50th Anniversary Block Party
Mayor Zohran Mamdani officially declared April 18th MoMA PS1 Day, “celebrating 50 years of artists, community, and the simple, radical idea that contemporary art and culture belong to everyone.” This past Saturday was MoMA PS1’s 50th Anniversary Block Party. It was a day filled with unabashed joy and pride for New York City artists and their communities.
This cause for celebration encapsulates why the show itself is entitled Greater New York. The show takes place every 5 years, but as this is the 50th anniversary, it has a unique electricity. “Spanning all levels of MoMA PS1’s historic school building, Greater New York 2026 brings into focus over 50 multidisciplinary artists in the formative years of their careers” (MoMA PS1).
One of the highlights is the Cevallos brothers. Their work spans 80 years in New York City, including making colorful signs for Latin American stores called carteleras in Queens. When you enter PS1, visitors are greeted with a Cevallos mural, speckled with NYC iconography.
We spoke with Jack Radley, Assistant Director, Communications & Audience Strategy, and he said the day’s events took over a year and a half to plan. That timeline still seems like a feat when I look around and see several exhibits on each floor, a packed market run by FAD (Fashion Art Design) selling artisan wares, children’s workshops, a buoyant dancefloor, DJs, food, talks, and a never ending flow of people. The planning also included over 100 studio visits, followed by the process of narrowing it down to 53 artists. The show exhibits around 85% new work.
Internally, the building itself is covered with hidden masterpieces by legendary artists. Radley describes these features as giving the building a “second skin.” For example, the stairwells display William Kentridge’s signature black silhouette pieces on the otherwise blank brick walls. This makes the building feel alive.
MoMA PS1 has been a haven for mold breakers since its conception. It was the New York New Wave Show at PS1 in 1981 that celebrated Basquiat and Keith Haring as emerging artists fresh on the scene. Greater New York 2026 shows how the fabric of New York City is woven through the lives and careers of its artists. The pieces highlight taxi drivers, construction workers, cyclists, immigrant experiences, and the city as a living breathing beast.
We also learned about MoMA PS1’s new program, Homeroom, which is supported by the Keith Haring Foundation. It is a program designed to “amplify and celebrate artists who work with our collaborators and partnership initiatives, who are the authors of each activation in this space.” Featured at Greater New York 2026 on the first floor, Red Canary Song presents their Homeroom project, Touch the Heart. A Queens-based collective formed in 2017, Red Canary Song is a grassroots organization created and led by Asian massage and sex workers.
"In response to the death of Yang Song, a migrant Chinese massage worker killed during a police raid in Queens. Since then, Red Canary Song has expanded into a mutual aid network that foregrounds the experiences of directly impacted workers, providing groceries, cash assistance, translation services, and connection to legal support and person-first health care”, (MoMA PS1).
The title of the exhibit is a translation of the Cantonese “dim sum.” As viewers enter, they walk among displays of dim sum tables staged with model food, resources and literature, and props. This, all situated within a room lined with sheer pink, gauzy, billowing curtains.
MoMA PS1’s ethos focuses on daring artists who never waited for permission or acceptance by the greater artworld before creating with honesty and an inner fire. With this legacy in mind, Greater New York 2026 was organized for the first time by MoMA PS1’s full curatorial team: “the exhibition emphasizes the forces that shape daily life in the city today, as well as strategies of resistance and adaptation in the face of increased surveillance, economic precarity, and shifting technologies.”
