A Sustained Becoming: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2026

For eight years the Studio Museum's Artist-in-Residence show was staged off-site at MoMA PS1. This year it is back inside the museum's own building, and Derriann Pharr, Simonette Quamina and Taylor Simmons are the first cohort to have made their work in the new J. Bruce Llewellyn Artist in Residence Center.

All three start from the figure, then go separate ways. Pharr builds fluid, ambiguous mixed-media figures that resist naturalistic likeness. Quamina makes monumental prints and collaged graphite drawings out of a childhood spent between the Caribbean, South America and New York. Simmons layers acrylic, oil, airbrush and wax, sampling music, photographs and viral content into scenes of masculinity and youthful play. That is a better use of viral content than the screenshots folder you will never open.

No critic has reviewed it yet. The museum describes real and otherworldly images that evoke remembering or dreaming. It runs to 3 January 2027, with late hours until 9pm on Fridays. Admission is pay-what-you-can, $16 suggested for adults.