Volkswagen of America Sponsors MoMA PS1 Performance Dome, Which Launches February 5 With Weekly "Sunday Sessions"

HERNDON, Va., Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Volkswagen of America today announced the inauguration of a new performance dome at MoMA PS1, as part of its ongoing, innovative partnership with MoMA and MoMA PS1. The Volkswagen-sponsored MoMA PS1 Performance Dome will allow for expanded winter programming in MoMA PS1's iconic courtyard, namely weekly "Sunday Sessions," which will launch Sunday, February 5 and continue every Sunday through May 13, 2012.

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Weekly "Sunday Sessions" in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome will feature an amalgam of artistic programming—from light, sound, and music installations to lectures by world-renowned scholars and special performances. Various other galleries and rooms inside of the former schoolhouse will also be activated during these weekly sessions. The inaugural celebration of the dome on February 5 will feature a special performance by musician Nicolas Jaar and collaborators Will Epstein, Dave Harrington and Sasha Spielberg, presented by MoMA PS1, Pitchfork, and Clown & Sunset Aesthetics (CSA). The five-hour, continuous piece will combine recording, sampling, and looping techniques with analogue instrumentation and sound-derived video from CSA's resident filmmaker Ryan Staake as well as a movement piece from Lizzie Fiedelson LIVE in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome.

Details about additional "Sunday Sessions" schedules will be forthcoming.

About the Volkswagen, MoMA, and MoMA PS1 Partnership

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, and Volkswagen began a two-year partnership in 2011 that supports exhibitions and education at MoMA and at MoMA PS1.  The major components of the partnership are the support for an international contemporary art exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2013, and the expansion of MoMA's online course offerings beginning in March 2012.  It also includes sponsorship of a series of installations in MoMA's Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and new initiatives to take place in 2012.

This unprecedented partnership supports MoMA and MoMA PS1's leadership role in contemporary art and culture, and our goal of reaching a diverse and global audience. As part of the partnership with Volkswagen, Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA, is currently engaged in extensive research to scout artists working in multiple mediums throughout the world.  A major exhibition filling MoMA PS1's entire gallery space, and utilizing the new MoMA PS1 Performance Dome, will open in 2013, highlighting artists who are reacting to the pressing questions of the 21st century with its interrelated ecological, economical, spiritual, ethnographic, political, and social challenges. 

About MoMA PS1

MoMA PS1 is one of the largest and oldest organizations in the United States solely devoted to contemporary art. Established in 1976 by Alanna Heiss, MoMA PS1 originated from The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, a not-for-profit organization founded five years prior with the mission of turning abandoned, underutilized buildings in New York City into artist studios and exhibition spaces. P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, as it then was known, became an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art in 2000.

About Volkswagen of America, Inc.

Founded in 1955, Volkswagen of America, Inc. is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. It is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany. Volkswagen's operations in the United States include research and development, parts and vehicle processing, parts distribution centers, sales, marketing and service offices, financial service centers, and its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Volkswagen is one of the world's largest producers of passenger cars and Europe's largest automaker. Volkswagen sells the Beetle, Eos, Golf, GTI, Jetta, Jetta SportWagen, Passat, CC, Tiguan, Touareg and Routan vehicles through approximately 600 independent U.S. dealers.

SOURCE Volkswagen of America