Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2023–24 cohort (from left): Malcolm Peacock, Zoë Pulley and Sonia Louise Davis. Photo by Courtney Sofiah Yates
Aug. 19, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
A new exhibition is set to open at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City on Sep. 26 featuring the Studio Museum in Harlem, called “Pass Carry Hold: Studio Museum Artists in Residence.”
Pass Carry Hold features the work of this year’s artists in residence: Sonia Louise Davis, Malcolm Peacock and Zoë Pulley. The exhibition marks the sixth year of a multiyear partnership between the Studio Museum, The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 and will run from Sep. 26 through Feb. 10, 2025.
Peacock, Davis and Pulley are part of the 2023-24 cohort of the Studio Museum’s foundational residency program and explore themes of ancestral and intuitive knowledge in the upcoming exhibition. Their works reference how ancestral knowledge is activated through that which is passed on, carried forward, and held onto.
Founded in 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem promotes the work of artists of African descent and is currently in the process of constructing a new home at its long-time location on Manhattan’s West 125th Street. The museum entered into a multi-year partnership with MoMA PS1 in 2015 aimed at diversifying the next generation of art professionals.
For the upcoming exhibition, Peacock, Davis and Pulley have made use of family photographs, hand-braided hair and soundscapes, calling attention to daily practices of caring for others through record-keeping and storytelling traditions. They have also employed techniques such as sewing, embroidery, braiding and tufting for installations in the new exhibitions.
MoMA PS1 says that the exhibition poses that “time itself is a material; its mark on the work, however undefined, is an invitation to slow down, bear witness and stay a while.”
Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, said it has been a joy to watch the three artists in residence, stating that all three artists have evolved significantly over the past year. She added that the exhibition pays tribute to Black material culture and how it connects to collective memory.
“Each artwork in Pass Carry Hold serves as a testament to the profound ways Black material culture informs and preserves a collective memory,” Golden said in a statement. My deep appreciation goes to MoMA PS1, our institutional partner over the last few years, whose continued collaboration makes this exhibition possible.”
Sonia Louise Davis. Emergence: Spring Rounds. 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Sebastian Bach
Davis, born in New York City in 1988, uses visual art, writing and musical performance in her works, using vibrant colors and musical interventions in many of her projects.
At Pass Carry Hold, Davis presents an immersive audio work, wall painting and five textile-based works that she terms “soft paintings.” Exhibiting her textiles on free-standing supports, Davis crafts “pathways through the gallery that weave audiences in and out of abstract color and soundscapes,” MoMA PS1 said in a statement.
Malcolm Peacock, meanwhile, explores Black subjectivity and “the spatial politics that govern Black mobility” using performance, audio and sculpture. At MoMA PS1, Peacock will exhibit a sculpture-and-audio work in the form of a redwood tree trunk covered in thousands of handmade synthetic hair braids, studying whether access to nature remains racialized.
Zoë Pulley. A Blouse for Melanie Blagburn. 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach
Pulley, who uses “stuff” as a holder of individual and collective Black memory, offers an intimate portrait of her family for the MoMA PS1 exhibition, incorporating sculpture, audio, repeating patterns and found objects that together form a familiar kitchen space.
All three artists will join Yelena Keller, Assistant Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, for a round-table discussion about the exhibition at MoMA PS1 on Oct. 19.
MoMA PS1 is open between 12 and 6 p.m. on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, between 12 and 10 p.m. on Fridays and between 12 and 8 p.m. on Saturdays. It is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
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