Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon

This major exhibition of artist Ralph Lemon (b. 1952, Cincinnati) features more than sixty artworks made over the last decade across disciplines and marks the debut of several collaborative performances. One of the most significant figures to emerge from New York’s downtown scene, Lemon has expanded the capacity for storytelling across contexts and traditions. Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon comprises dance, drawings, photographs, sculpture, paintings, and video throughout the museum’s expansive third-floor galleries, alongside a synchronous program of live works staged in a dedicated performance space. The centerpiece of the exhibition is Rant redux (2020–24), a major four-channel video and sound installation realized with Kevin Beasley and based on the live performance Rant (2019–ongoing). The performance program includes the US debut of In Proximity (2022) and the New York premiere of Tell it anyway (2024), and invites a series of special guests to respond to Lemon’s drawings from Untitled (The greatest [Black] art history story ever told. Unfinished) (2015–present). Lemon’s work takes the body as an archive of raw emotion, physical labor, and received histories to challenge the ways we have been taught to see the world.