Ruba Katrib

PLUS MAGAZINE  Before a project takes shape, how do you begin to process what is happening around you, and how does that attention to cultural signals, patterns, and shifts start to inform the exhibitions you develop?

RUBA KATRIB  I try to absorb what’s happening in the world. I read a lot of news, listen to podcasts (maybe too many), and carve out at least an hour a day for reading fiction, along with periodicals like the LRB. I pay close attention to what people say.
I like to synthesize, notice patterns, and ask questions. I’m not a detective trying to uncover the truth, but I am interested in what underlies any situation, what the motivations are, what is being signaled. I like to probe and speculate. I’m interested in both small and large cultural shifts, and much of my work is about being attuned to and responding to our evolving times. I’m obsessed with how things change and cycle back.
Art fits naturally here because it takes the temperature and reflects the world back to us. My work isn’t about being diagnostic, but about peeling back layers and seeing things from a different angle. I’m never trying to prove a single point, but instead hope to invite closer readings and critical connections.

P  That way of working depends on openness. How do you think about leaving things open in an institutional setting like PS1? Is that something that’s become easier or more necessary over time?

RK  Even through the completion of a project, I like to leave room to be surprised and to learn, and I hope others can share in that too. I also understand why there is a growing appeal for neat packaging within arts institutions today, but to me, this is really antithetical to what we are doing as arts workers — particularly within contemporary art. We are all creating together in the present moment; how can we possibly know exactly what we are doing? I love taking chances in the realm of art and ideas, and I love creating spaces where artists can take these chances too. Why not? For instance, I worked with the experimental musical project, Standing on the Corner, to transform one of our galleries into an installation that was activated periodically with concerts. Similarly, with Chuquimamani-Condori, we presented an installation, a concert, as well as a conference relating to the ideas within their work, which may not always come through in their usual gigs. These projects were certainly challenging as they broke out of the mold, but PS1 is a great place for working like this, and I appreciate the inherent flexibility of this museum (our founding legacy) more and more each day — particularly as energy is being zapped from so many arts spaces due to very real concerns: money, censorship, expansionism, and so on.

P  At a time when so many exhibitions are encountered through screens, how do you hold on to the physical, spatial experience of a show, and why does that embodied encounter feel so essential to you now?

RK  I really believe that experiencing an exhibition requires being in space. It is spatial. The best shows consider volume, size, shape, flow, sightlines, and physical encounters. It isn’t just optical. For me, holding on to ideas of space is critical at a time when our eyes are so overwhelmed. It sounds cheesy, but when I encounter art out in the world, it’s really with my body first, eyes second. At heart, I am really a sculpture person. We need to treasure these increasingly rare, embodied experiences. 

P  You’ve spoken about the importance of space and how exhibitions are experienced. Being located in Queens, PS1 has a distinctly local energy. How does the community and the place shape the museum, and how has that connection endured?

RK  Queens is a borough on the rise! I have a personal connection to Queens: when my mother and her parents came from Syria, they ended up in Jamaica, Queens. I spent many summers and holidays in their house growing up. The sage green bathroom tiles are still vivid in my memory. So it does feel like home to me, and it has been a place where I’ve been working now for over a decade.
In my time at PS1, I feel the museum has risen to meet the borough, and that we are lucky to be in such a vibrant, exciting place. Queens is also one of the most diverse areas in the world. We look at the global through the local and vice versa. There is no shortage of connections to be made.
For instance, last year we brought a show with Pacita Abad to the museum, and later programmed an exhibition with Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien, who were also working through political issues in the Philippine island of Negros, concurrent with a project we presented by Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts, who were dealing with grassroots issues that affect our local communities. I do think more and more the borough really bolsters us and defines us. 

P  When you think about whether a show has truly made an impact, whose response matters most to you, and how do you measure that engagement over time?

RK  For me, the fact that artists care about a show is the biggest indicator of its impact. They are the most invested audience, and they carry the conversations forward. Of course, I consider other, more traditional metrics as well, and we need to reach beyond, but if artists aren’t engaged, I think that’s a really troubling sign.

P  Lastly, museums shape attention in powerful ways. How do you think about time and continuity in that context, especially when working with practices that develop over time?

RK  I would maybe offer a counterintuitive approach here. Because attention spans and memory are so short today, big blowouts tend to come and go very quickly. Attempts to compete for or capture attention often lead to unsustainable results. I don’t think we can necessarily slow things down, but I do think the temporalities we’re working with can be activated differently. By this, I mean that it’s important to have threads that continue across a program. It might not be a single exhibition that breaks through, but an aggregate of projects that unfold over months or years. At PS1, I think you can follow the program through all its twists and turns and see how something, an idea, an approach, a question, is actually building, growing, and developing, something that we at the museum are learning from and responding to just as much as our audiences are. This ranges from geopolitical issues and the intersections between them, as well as experimental artistic methodologies that have always been part of PS1’s DNA. 

Shape of Influence is a special feature in Issue 10 highlighting four figures shaping New York’s contemporary art landscape.