P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

MoMA PS1

21st Street side of building
Established	1971
Location	New York City (Long Island City, Brooklyn FDP !), New York, U.S.
Coordinates	40°44′43″N 73°56′53″W / 40.745367°N 73.947977°W / 40.745367; -73.947977
Type	Contemporary art
Visitors	about 150,000 per year
Director	Klaus Biesenbach
Website	Official website

MoMA PS1 is one of the largest art institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. It is located in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution also organizes the International and National Projects series, the Warm Up summer music series, and the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program with the Museum of Modern Art. It also ran WPS1, an Internet art radio station, from 2004 to 2009. MoMA PS1 has been affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since January 2000 and, as of 2009^[update], attracts about 150,000 visitors a year.

P.S.1 (now MoMA PS1) was founded in 1971 by Alanna Heiss as the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc., an organization with the mission of turning abandoned, underutilized buildings in New York City into artist studios and exhibition spaces. Heiss, the center's former director, was born in 1943 in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in Jacksonville, Illinois. The daughter of teachers, she graduated with a B.A. from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, which she attended on a scholarship from the Lawrence Conservatory of Music.

Recognizing that New York was the worldwide magnet for contemporary artists, and believing that traditional museums were not providing adequate exhibition opportunities for site-specific art, Heiss decided to establish a formal, alternative arts organization. She was working as a contemporary art organizer with various civic organizations when she formed what became a long-term friendship and working relationship with architecture/theater critic Brendan Gill. In 1971, she and Gill founded The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, and began renovating many old abandoned buildings in New York City. That year, Heiss and Gill organized their first alternative exhibition, working with the artist Gordon Matta-Clark in the unused spaces beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Among the sites transformed by the Institute were 10 Bleecker Street, the Coney Island Sculpture Museum, and the Idea Warehouse in TriBeCa. Later in 1973, the Clocktower Gallery, located in a 13-story municipal Beaux-Arts building at 108 Leonard Street, opened with its inaugural three shows: Joel Shapiro, Richard Tuttle. The Clocktower Gallery became a well-known alternative space and its distinctive location "in the sky near" City Hall made it an icon of one-person shows.