Ceremonies Out of the Air at MoMA PS1 by Ralph Lemon presents over sixty artworks from the past decade—spanning dance, video installations, drawings, sculptures, photographs, paintings, and live performances. Lemon engages with postmodern dance and storytelling, using the body as an archive to challenge conventional perspectives.
Lemon’s movement-based works challenge formalist conventions and disrupt historical narratives, exploring how time and place are embodied in muscle memory. His works on paper merge diasporic Black life with iconic artworks and vibrant color, while his video pieces engage with figures like Bruce Nauman and James Baldwin. Across various media, Lemon’s art reflects his connection to both the mundane and the infinite, focusing on themes of dedication and spiritual release.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is Rant redux (2020–24), a dynamic four-channel video and sound installation created with Kevin Beasley. Based on Lemon’s ongoing live performance Rant (2019–present), it features powerful performances by artists such as Beasley, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Darrell Jones. Described by Lemon as an “exploded documentary,” the work explores themes of rage, freedom, and ecstasy in Brown/Black body cultural experiments.
Another key work is 1856 Cessna Road (2002–24), a cycle of videos, photographs, and artifacts created with Walter Carter, a former sharecropper. This project examines historical violence, artistic collaboration, and biography, emphasizing Lemon’s “fugitivity” approach, where works resist easy categorization.
His recent premiere of Tell It Anyway at the Walker Art Center marked his return to proscenium performance, which will be restructured at PS1 to offer new perspectives. Featuring music by Kevin Beasley, the work explores Black culture, celebrating both joy and pain through text, intense dancing, and a segment that pushes the body to its physical extremes.
Born in Cincinnati and raised in Minneapolis, Lemon began dancing in 1975 at the University of Minnesota, where he studied under Nancy Hauser and was influenced by Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown at the Walker Art Center. Now based in Philadelphia and New York, he works across choreography, writing, and visual art, with exhibitions at venues such as The Kitchen, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Walker Art Center. Lemon’s honors include three Bessie Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a National Medal of Arts, and a MacArthur Fellowship.
