Artist Michael Rakowitz Paused His Video at MoMA PS1 as an Act of Protest. After He Left, the Museum Turned It Back On

Last November, Michael
Rakowitz asked MoMA PS1 to pause a
video of his currently on view. The request was made as a gesture of protest
against Larry Fink and Leon Black, two board members at the
museum’s sister institution in Manhattan, the Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA), whom he categorizes as examples of “toxic
philanthropy.” 

MoMA PS1 never honored
Rakowitz’s wishes, though. So on Saturday, the artist showed up to
the museum’s exhibition “Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars
1991-2011,” where the video was on display, to pause it
himself. Next to the work, titled RETURN (2004–), he posted a statement explaining why
he chose to alter the artwork.

“I’ve decided to press the pause
button on my video, RETURN, so that we can discuss some recent events,”
Rakowitz’s statement began. The artist then calls on Fink to divest
from his company BlackRock, which has come under fire for
investing in GEO Group and Core Civic, two companies that own
private prisons. It also names Black, whose investment firm Apollo
Global has been connected to a defense contractor responsible for
killing 17 people at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007.

“I kindly request that Larry
Fink and Leon Black please divest from these companies so that I
may unpause my video and press play. If this is not possible, then
I kindly ask that MoMA please divest from Larry Fink and Leon Black
as trustees so that I may unpause my video and press
play.”

The story didn’t stop there.
After Rakowitz left PS1 Sunday, the museum removed his statement
and restarted the video.

“RETURN is an ongoing project and I should have been
allowed to update my work,” Rakowitz told Artnet News over
email. “The removal of the statement and the museum’s decision
to unpause my video damages the work.”

MoMA PS1 has not yet responded
to Artnet’s request for comment. 

The museum operates under its
own board, separate from that of MoMA. PS1 leadership, including
director Kate Fowle, chief curator Peter Eleey, and
“Theater
of Operations” curator Ruba
Katrib, reportedly stressed this fact in a meeting with Rakowitz
last November. They offered to host an event that would highlight
the concerns raised by Rakowitz, but the artist declined, saying he
“would be more convinced by a process that involved the communities
directly affected by BlackRock, etc.” and still insisting that they
pause the artwork. 

“I was told by the curators that they wanted to keep the show
intact,” Rakowitz recalls of the exchange. “I told the curators and
director via email that the posting of my statement, together
with the pausing of my video that tells the story of
RETURN, is meant to draw attention to a situation that
gives me pause as a human and an artist. Given the details that
have emerged about MoMA board members being entangled in companies
which continue to impact the situation in Iraq, it is appropriate
to register this impact within my installation.”

Rakowitz claims that he
submitted requests to PS1 to pause his video three separate times
and that on each occasion he was told that their position “had not
changed.”

“From the inception of this
exhibition in 2017, we’ve been fully committed to open
communication with artists around the presentation of their work
and how to amplify the crucial topics this exhibition explores,”
the museum said in a statement to the Art
Newspaper in December. “MoMA PS1 is committed to
addressing timely issues, and respects the rights of all artists to
decide when and where to show their work.”

In 2000, Rakowitz’s first solo project was held in the same room
at PS1 where his video is now mounted (a fact that coincidentally
adds another layer of meaning to the title of RETURN).
That early work, which took the form of a sculpture made from
ductwork and fans, adjusted the temperature and relative
humidity of the PS1 room. (Having recently been converted from a
public school building to an art space, the museum was not yet able
to properly regulate its ambient conditions.)

The project “created a safe space for the exhibition of
artwork,” says Rakowitz. “Now, unfortunately, this space has been
made unsafe. A museum would not compromise the well-being of an
artwork. Why, then would it compromise the integrity and well-being
of an artist by urging them to exhibit under the auspices and with
the funding of people who make conditions unsafe for others?”

Click below to read the artist’s full statement.

The post Artist Michael Rakowitz Paused His Video at MoMA
PS1 as an Act of Protest. After He Left, the Museum Turned It Back
On appeared first on artnet News.