
Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon
Ralph Lemon(Author)
MoMA PS1 (Publisher)
Published on 30. January 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
168 pages
978-0-9841776-9-1 (ISBN)
Description
More than 60 works across media, including major ensemble performances, emerging in the afterlife of postmodern dance
Philadelphia-based artist, dancer and choreographer Ralph Lemon (born 1952) is one of the most significant figures to arise from New York's downtown scene in the 1990s. This catalog, published on the occasion of the first US museum exhibition of Lemon's work in movement, film and installation, traces the arc of his ongoing collaborations, which extend far beyond the paradigm of dance. Texts by exhibition curators Connie Butler and Thomas Lax are accompanied by essays and contributions by Kevin Beasley, Adrienne Edwards, Darrell Jones, Ralph Lemon, Okwui Okpokwasili, Kevin Quashie and Kari Rittenbach. Featuring a dust jacket that unfolds into a poster, the book includes full-color illustrations of Lemon's artworks and reproductions of his sketches and notations.
Philadelphia-based artist, dancer and choreographer Ralph Lemon (born 1952) is one of the most significant figures to arise from New York's downtown scene in the 1990s. This catalog, published on the occasion of the first US museum exhibition of Lemon's work in movement, film and installation, traces the arc of his ongoing collaborations, which extend far beyond the paradigm of dance. Texts by exhibition curators Connie Butler and Thomas Lax are accompanied by essays and contributions by Kevin Beasley, Adrienne Edwards, Darrell Jones, Ralph Lemon, Okwui Okpokwasili, Kevin Quashie and Kari Rittenbach. Featuring a dust jacket that unfolds into a poster, the book includes full-color illustrations of Lemon's artworks and reproductions of his sketches and notations.
Reviews / Votes
The simultaneous embrace of form and formlessness is indicative of Lemon's refusal to be fixed. He handles identity like wet clay: something slippery, unstable, and wildly hard to grasp. -- Amit Noy * Artforum * Bringing into focus works that resist broad classification, 'Ceremonies Out of the Air' illustrates Lemon's characteristic style of deflection, or what he calls fugitivity.' His anarchic, movement-based works obliterate formalist conventions, skewer straightforward tellings of history, and consider how time and place materialize in muscle memory. * Mousse Magazine * Much like Lemon himself, the exhibition defies categorization, blending and blurring his roles as an artist, choreographer, and writer. The result is a body of work that is at once confounding and poetic, absurd yet deeply relatable, offering a fragmented yet illuminating glimpse into the intricate workings of the artist's mind. -- Rebecca Schiffman * Hyperallergic * Working in the contexts of dance, drawing, painting, installation, and writing, New York-based Ralph Lemon has expanded what art can be through a generative practice that questions the conventions of his different disciplines and his body's relationship to each. -- Maximiliano Duron * Art in America *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
NY
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
80 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
476 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-9841776-9-1 (9780984177691)
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Schweitzer Classification