PS122 Gallery is pleased to co-present with the National Academy of Design Media Relay: An Exhibition in Two Parts, featuring six media artworks by National Academicians – peter campus, Elizabeth King, Mary Lucier, Christian Marclay, Shahzia Sikander, and Carrie Mae Weems – each of whom has pioneered innovative practices in film and video. Media Relay is on view from January 13 – February 27, 2022.

The exhibition includes iconic media-based artworks that each artist – peter campus, Elizabeth King, Mary Lucier, Christian Marclay, Shahzia Sikander, and Carrie Mae Weems – has contributed to the Academy’s permanent collection – one of the largest collections of American Art in the United States – in a tradition that dates back to the National Academy’s founding in 1825.

The second half of Media Relay, opening on February 3, will feature work from a group of additional artists – Cecelia Condit, Kathleen J Graves, Tala Madani, Camila Rodríguez Triana, Stephen Vitiello – nominated by the Academicians featured in the exhibition. The criteria for the nominations made by the Academicians were simple: it could be a former student, a mentee, a friend, someone whose work they admire, up close or from afar. In organizing the exhibition as a “relay” – an invitational exchange between artists – the show enacts an aspect of community that is integral to the National Academy’s identity as an artist-led organization.

The Academicians’ artworks, in dialogue with the artists they have brought into the exhibition, broadly reflect on the effects of living in a media-saturated environment, the subsequent fragmentation produced by technology, and the surreal impact that the blurring of boundaries between humans and devices has had on both our waking lives and dream states. Presented in 2022, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this selection of works poignantly reflects on our collective experience of the last two years – a time in which intimacy, isolation, and technology have altered our perception of time and our relationships to place and each other.

Media Relay: An Exhibition in Two Parts has been organized as a collaborative effort between the National Academy of Design’s Chief Curator Sara Reisman, Director of Collections Diana Thompson, Curatorial Fellow Natalia Viera Salgado, and PS122 Gallery Director Ian Cofre.

Participating Artists
The first half of the exhibition will feature the following National Academicians: peter campus, Elizabeth King, Mary Lucier, Christian Marclay, Shahzia Sikander, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The second half will also feature the following additional artists: Cecelia Condit (nominated by Mary Lucier), Kathleen J Graves (nominated by peter campus), Tala Madani (nominated by Shahzia Sikander), Camila Rodríguez Triana (nominated by Carrie Mae Weems), and Stephen Vitiello (nominated by Elizabeth King).


The National Academy of Design promotes art and architecture in America through exhibition, education, and research. Founded in 1825, the Academy is the leading honorary society for visual artists and architects in the United States. It advocates for the arts as a tool for education, celebrates the role of artists and architects in public life, and serves as a catalyst for cultural conversations that propel society forward.

The membership of the National Academy is composed of 450 artists and architects who have been elected by their peers in recognition of their contributions to art and architecture in America. Upon election, incoming National Academicians are invited to donate a representative sample of their work to the Academy’s collection, which today is one of the most important collections of American art and architecture in the world.

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