MoMA - Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise
Mon, Sep 01
|MoMA
Stephen Prina takes the stage at MoMA in A Lick and a Promise, a bold, multi-site survey exploring sound, time, and cultural memory through music, art, and performance.
Time & Location
Sep 01, 2025, 7:00 AM – Dec 31, 2025, 11:00 PM
MoMA, 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, USA
About the event
September – December 2025
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Visit MoMA.org
What does it mean to perform history?In A Lick and a Promise, Stephen Prina—acclaimed artist, composer, and musical provocateur—receives his first major survey focused on performance. Over the past three decades, Prina has blended visual art, pop culture, and high theory with rare fluency, drawing from sources as eclectic as Joni Mitchell, Robert Bresson, and Édouard Manet to craft work that explores how time reframes cultural value.
This exhibition unfolds across multiple MoMA spaces, including the Kravis Studio, and features restagings of key past works—like the durational piece Sonic Dan (1994–2001)—alongside a major new commission: A Lick and a Promise (2025), an orchestral composition for 13 instruments culminating in a live pop concert.
With his signature blend of humor, rigor, and musicality, Prina offers a deeply intellectual yet emotionally resonant experience. This survey celebrates his singular contribution to the evolving dialogue…