MoMA PS1 marks 50 years with ambitious artist survey across New York

MoMA PS1 is marking its 50th anniversary in 2026 with a sprawling exhibition that reflects how the institution has always worked: by listening to the city's artists first.

Greater New York, the museum's quinquennial survey of art made in and around the city, will open April 16, 2026, with over 50 artists included. This time, the curatorial team is doing something different. Rather than bringing in outside curators to shape the show, PS1's own team—director Connie Butler, chief curator Ruba Katrib, and associate curators Jody Graf and Elena Ketelsen González—are leading the vision, supported by assistant curator Kari Rittenbach, curatorial assistant Sheldon Gooch, and coordinator Andrea Sánchez.

Over the past year, this team has spent time in artist studios across all five boroughs, conducting the kind of slow, attentive work that doesn't always make headlines. "Each iteration of Greater New York is formed in relation to the artists of this city, offering a view into the practices, perspectives, and preoccupations that shape a moment," Katrib said. "Our curatorial team has spent countless hours in studio visits—an energizing process that has been full of conversations, discoveries, and close-looking."

That approach matters. Greater New York began in 2000 as a way to take stock of what artists in the city were actually making and thinking about, not what outside tastemakers assumed they should be. It happens every five years, making it one of the few institutional surveys that genuinely tries to capture a moment rather than impose a narrative onto one.

The 2026 edition arrives at an unusual moment for New York's art calendar. The Whitney Biennial and the New Museum Triennial are also opening in 2026, creating a rare convergence of the city's three major biennial-style exhibitions in a single year. That's a lot of artists getting attention, a lot of studio visits, a lot of conversations about what matters now.