MoMA PS1 has spent nearly 50 years turning a former Queens public school into one of New York’s most adventurous stages for contemporary art, and this anniversary year brings free general admission, a landmark survey of emerging New York artists, and a courtyard transformed into a living forest.
Latin and Global Roots Artists at MoMA PS1
Precious Okoyomon: Courtyard Commission
Nigerian British American artist
This inaugural edition of MoMA PS1’s new annual commission series is a living forest installation built around a large-scale interactive bear sculpture, with exotic flowers, weeds, and boulders arranged to grow and shift over the run.
Courtyard
Opens Fri, July 31, 2026 | Ends Wed, July 1, 2028
FREE
Have a look at momaps1.org
A London-born Yoruba Nigerian American artist, poet, and chef; Precious Okoyomon has spent years turning gallery floors into living ecosystems, and MoMA PS1’s famously bare concrete courtyard just became the biggest canvas they’ve had yet.
As the inaugural artist in the museum’s new Courtyard Commission series, Okoyomon has planted a forest that will keep changing shape for two years, anchored by an oversized bear sculpture visitors can actually walk into, through its body and out its mouth, discovering a multisensory installation along the way.
Developed with the nursery issima, the piece folds trees, wildflowers, and weeds into that walk-through structure, turning a corner of the museum long associated with stark industrial architecture into something closer to an overgrown fairy tale.
Haven’t spoken with them, but there may be several cultural contexts operating here. These are Editor Iroko Kíko’s interpretations.
Northern Nigeria is in the Sahel, the transition zone from the Sahara Desert to the tropical savannas in the south. One of the ways we turn the desert green is by planting. Living plants create their own microclimates. Okoyomon is making PS1’s dry concrete come alive. They are terraforming.
Okoyomon is Yoruba descent. Many Nigerian rivers are deified because water brings life, especially near the desert. One of Nigeria’s rivers is the Oshún River, home of the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove where rituals are performed to the young woman Orisha of beauty, love, fertility, and prosperity to this day. This may be MoMA PS1’s sacred grove.
Migrating is never easy. Their family made migrations from Nigeria to London to New York City. The teddy bear is a recurring motif in the artist’s work. It represents comfort because when you find yourself in another part of the world, you really want something to hold on to that provides comfort. The bear’s architectural form would not look out of place among some tribal African homes, or among the curated forest in Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove.
Several famous female singers in New York have also created their own personal spaces to provide comfort in an uncertain world. This may be a symbol of their generation because the entire world seems to be falling apart around us all at once.
There may also be an element of Afro-Futurism, even though this doesn’t look steampunk at all. Modern Western lifestyles are self-destructive, poisonous to life. Okoyomon may be suggesting an alternative future where instead of creating ever more dangerous chemicals and machines, we return to a simpler life in the paradise that The Creator gave us.
Precious Okoyomon has created a home at PS1, and in the best African Diasporic tradition, you are welcome to visit. Coming during MoMA PS1’s 50th anniversary year and its shift to free general admission, this is as good a reason as any to make the trip out to Long Island City this summer. ¡Àṣẹ! (Amen)
Greater New York
Five-year survey of contemporary artists in Metro New York
African American, Ecuadorian, Guatemalan, Indigenous, Jamaican, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan artists
April 16 – August 17, 2026
FREE
More…
Papo Colo: Procesión-Migración
Puerto Rican performance artist
Puertos Ricos Festival
January 6-8, 2017
More…
Colo led a large procession into El Yunque, the tropical rainforest protected since before the colonial era, and then disappeared for year.
El Yunque is the Taíno sacred mountain on the island of Borikén (Puerto Rico). The rainforest is its own climate generator. Just nine miles away, the islands are dry. In the colonial era, Puerto Rico was the first reliable water stop for many Atlantic crossings. When the tradewinds blow in from the east, they rise up the mountain and drink the forest’s respiration. This waters the entire island. El Yunque really is a sacred mountain, and so is the rainforest.
Some African Diasporic traditions have dieties who disappear into the forest. Many Puerto Ricans are familiar with these, so this may be a personal reenactment of something much bigger.
About MoMA PS1
Founded in 1976 as one of the first alternative art spaces in the country, MoMA PS1 has built its reputation on giving artists room to experiment that traditional museums rarely offer.
Long affiliated with MoMA, it remains a distinct institution in its own right, known for its rotating exhibitions, the Warm Up summer music series, and now the annual Courtyard Commission, which hands its most public space over to a single artist’s vision each year.
Its Long Island City home, a converted public school building, keeps that experimental spirit visible in the architecture itself.