Rirkrit Tiravanija: A Lot of People at MoMA PS1

From October 12, 2023 through March 2024, MoMA PS1 presents the first US survey and largest exhibition to date dedicated to Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961, Buenos Aires)

Source: MoMA · Image: Rirkrit Tiravanjia. untitled 1993 (sleep/winter). 1993. Straw mat, foam mattress, cotton, pillow, duvet. Dimensions variable. Installation view, 303 Gallery, New York, 1993. Courtesy the artist. © Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE traces four decades of Tiravanija’s career and features over 100 works, from early experimentations with installation and film, to drawings, works on paper, ephemera, sculpture, and newly produced “demonstrations” of key participatory works.

The exhibition gathers rarely seen early works from the late 1980s and 1990s, a period in which the artist was developing a post-studio practice and introducing biographical references to highlight his experiences as an immigrant with a palpable sense of “otherness” in a Western-centric art world. These works include many original sculptures, installations, and editions, some of which have been subsequently reimagined, cast, and memorialized over the years in new materials from plaster to bronze. Formative to his early practice, Tiravanija’s concern with the politics of the personal expanded into works that tackle global politics as well as the quotidian news cycle. To make many of these works, Tiravanija has set up a studio near his home in Chiang Mai, Thailand, creating an economy of art production that is explicitly localized and collaborative.

“Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE” is organized by Ruba Katrib, Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, MoMA PS1, and Yasmil Raymond, Rector, Städelschule and Director of Portikus, Frankfurt, with Jody Graf and Kari Rittenbach, Assistant Curators, MoMA PS1.