Jason Moran

Sept 20, 2019–Jan 5, 2020

5 men in hats in a circle, facing away from each other and playing 5 different pianos

The boundary-bursting artist Jason Moran (b. 1975) grounds his practice in the composition of jazz, bridging the visual and performing arts through spellbinding stagecraft. Heralded as one of the country’s leading jazz innovators, Moran transmutes his personal experience of the world into dynamic musical compositions that challenge the formal conventions of the medium. His experimental approach to art-making embraces the intersection of objects and sound, pushing beyond the traditional in ways that are inherently theatrical.

This exhibition—the artist’s first solo museum show—presents the range of work Moran has explored, from his own sculptures and drawings to collaborations with visual artists to performances. Among the many artists with whom Moran has collaborated are Joan Jonas, Kara Walker, Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Stan Douglas, Carrie Mae Weems, Adam Pendleton, Theaster Gates, Julie Mehretu, Ryan Trecartin, and Lizzie Fitch. Originating in Minneapolis at the Walker Art Center in the spring of 2018, the show has traveled to the ICA Boston and the Wexner Center before its final stop at the Whitney. This grand finale in Moran's hometown of New York City will feature many performances by renowned jazz musicians and new live adaptations of works made with his most significant artistic collaborators.

Jason Moran is organized by the Walker Art Center, and curated by Adrienne Edwards with Danielle A. Jackson. The Whitney’s presentation is overseen by Adrienne Edwards, the Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance, with Clémence White, senior curatorial assistant.

View performance series.

The exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Piano by Steinway & Sons.

In New York, the exhibition is sponsored by

Generous support for Jason Moran is provided by Erin and Peter Friedland, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Significant support is provided by Chip and Burwell Schorr, Norman and Melissa Selby, and the Joyce and George Wein Foundation.

Additional support is provided by Lisa and Dick Cashin.

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Collaboration has been central to Moran’s experiments, and among the many artists with whom he has collaborated include The Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits), Stan Douglas, Lizzie Fitch, Theaster Gates, Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Ashland Mines (Total Freedom), Alicia Hall Moran, Adam Pendleton, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Ryan Trecartin, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems.

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A person listening in a recording studio.

Stan Douglas’s films, photographs, and installations often reexamine past events at specific sites. His intricately composed jazz film Luanda-Kinshasa is set in a reconstruction of Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio in New York. Operated by the record label between 1948 and 1981, “The Church,” as it was known, produced such groundbreaking albums as Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue (1959) and Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979). Luanda-Kinshasa documents a fictional recording by ten musicians selected by the artist and Jason Moran. They improvise collaboratively, following Douglas’s prompt to imagine what Davis might have done after his 1971 record Live-Evil.

Dividing the room into two areas, Douglas shot half of the film during one session and the other half the following day. In order for this strategy to work musically, Moran made the songs interchangeable, formulating a way for the music to flow together seamlessly. The film itself combines and recombines edits to allow for musical variations, emphasizing a compositional process that defies expectations of a linear narrative.