Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE

From the start of his practice, a critical material for Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thai, b. 1961) has been the presence of “a lot of people”—a purposefully broad and expansive term that stands as an open invitation to everyone and anyone, present and future. His largest exhibition to date, Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE traces four decades of the artist’s career and features over 100 works, from early experimentations with installation and film, to works on paper, photographs, ephemera, sculptures, and newly produced “demonstrations” of key participatory pieces. The exhibition includes rarely seen early works that address his experiences as an immigrant with a palpable sense of “otherness” in a Western-centric art world, alongside more recent series that tackle global politics and the quotidian news cycle. Several interactive works will also be on view, along with restagings of five participatory works scheduled at set intervals throughout the run of the exhibition. These happenings will be staged anew in site-specific enactments at MoMA PS1—an experiment in presenting and reconsidering his situational performances. By surveying his practice as a sculptor, filmmaker, traveler, collaborator, and mentor, A LOT OF PEOPLE provides an overview of the striking complexity of Tiravanija’s efforts to “bring people in” to encounter each other and “make less things, but more useful relationships.”