nextbet The Art of Not Belonging: Ralph Lemon Takes Over MoMA PS1

Updated:2024-12-09 04:25 Views:66

Ralph Lemon, the kind of artist for whom deterrents are provocations, isn’t easily pinned down. He’s a choreographer and a visual artist. He’s written books. He’s received a MacArthur “genius” award. In certain circles, the name Ralph — no Lemon necessary, like Merce or Madonna — is all that’s needed to light up a room. For others, he’s an unknown. You get the feeling Lemon doesn’t mind. He once told Philip Bither, the senior curator of performing arts at the Walker Art Center, that he aspired to be only a rumor.

Can Lemon, 72, really pull off being “only a rumor”? He’s the subject of a major exhibition, “Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon,” opening at MoMA PS1 on Nov. 14. What does it mean for an artist who likes to evade institutional containers to expose himself in one of the most prestigious the city has to offer?

“Even with this PS1 show, there’s a big part of me that feels like I don’t belong here,” he said. “As an artist, not belonging is really incentive.”

Perhaps the more successful Lemon becomes, the more he needs to find ways to block out the noise. He is a puzzle, an artist of many pieces. One draw of “Ceremonies” is in how much of his artistry will be present: visual artwork, as well as performances, including the New York premiere of his most recent one, “Tell it anyway,” commissioned by the Walker in Minneapolis, on Nov. 14 and 16.

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Lemon in his studio in Philadelphia. For years his visual art was more private than his performance work. But that changed, he said, after he disbanded his company and had more time “with myself and with the world around me.”Credit...Hannah Beier for The New York Times

There is also “Rant redux” (2020-24), a four-channel video and sound installation created with the artist Kevin Beasley based on the “Rant” performance series in which dancers take sound, movement and voice to a feverish place. A live “Rant” — “Rant #6” — is planned for March 22.

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