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One of Columbia’s most accomplished alumni in the New York City art world is Eugenie Tsai, who in January became director of curatorial affairs at Project Studio 1 (P.S. 1) Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She had previously worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art and as an independent curator. Tsai received her Ph.D. in art and archeology in Columbia in 1995. The following is a Q&A with Tsai, conducted by the Record.
What is P.S. 1 exactly? It doesn’t have permanent collections, which means it’s not a museum, and it doesn’t sell art, which means it’s not a gallery.
P.S.1 could be called a kunsthalle, an institution that displays but does not collect contemporary art. When it first opened in 1976 in a former red brick school building, P.S.1 was thought of mainly as an alternative space, one that specialized in presenting installation. Artists created works of art in a specific room or space, and incorporated that space into the visitors’ experience of their art.
Notably, my introduction to P.S.1, and to the contemporary art scene in New York, began with an internship there in the early 1980s, while I was enrolled as a Columbia graduate student.
How does the mission of P.S. 1 compare to the Whitney, where you used to work, or for that matter to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), with which it’s now affiliated?
Peter Norton, chair of the P.S.1 board of directors, has aptly characterized P.S.1 as MoMA’s “rambunctious cousin” across the river. The P.S.1 approach to exhibitions of contemporary art differs considerably from that of MoMA or of the Whitney. At P.S.1, exhibitions are planned more quickly and the artists presented are often younger or less well known -- though not for long.
But even though the mission of P.S. 1 is to take the pulse of what’s happening at this moment in the art world, there’s also a wonderful kind of unpredictability about what will be on view. For example, this summer we are presenting an exhibition of the 75-year-old painter Ron Gorchov, who exhibited in the 1976 inaugural exhibition.
Is P.S. 1 displaying any works by young Columbia artists?
In the current round of project rooms are works by two recent Columbia M.F.A.s, Sara Greenberger Rafferty and Ohad Meromi. And former chair of Visual Arts John Kessler just closed his spectacular installation, “Palace at 4 AM.”
You’ve been at P.S. 1–MoMA since January. What has been the best thing about working there so far?
That’s easy: the amazing sense of energy that emanates from the unexpected mix of projects and exhibitions.
Did your Columbia Ph.D. help to launch you in the direction of curatorial affairs?
I wrote my dissertation on the American earthworks artist Robert Smithson. Several years later, in 1991, I organized the exhibition “Robert Smithson: Unearthed” with the assistance of a Wallach Art Gallery fellowship. My work on that exhibition led directly to the recent retrospective I organized for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which just now received the AICA’s top prize for best monograph exhibition nationally.
“Robert Smithson: Unearthed” allowed me to explore the possibility of curatorial work, though it was not until I began working at the Whitney that I acquired the administrative experience necessary for “curatorial affairs.”
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