Stephen Prina (*1954) is a key member of a post-conceptualist movement that emerged in the later 1980s and 1990s, with practices rooted in everyday culture that offered critiques of social and institutional systems. Alongside contemporaries such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Mike Kelley, Prina developed a varied body of work that entwines allusions to art, film, music and life, which surface and resurface from one project to the next in a vast network of references. Working between Los Angeles and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Prina has influenced generations of contemporary artists through both his art and his teaching at Harvard University.
Stephen Prina, The Top Thirteen Singles from Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles Chart for the Week September 11, 1993, 1993
Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York
Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York
Stephen Prina
A Lick and a Promise
The Museum of Modern Art – MoMA, New York
September 11–December 13, 2025
For the past three decades, artist, musician, and composer Stephen Prina has developed a singular and irreverent approach to installations, films, and musical performances. This exhibition will be the first in-depth survey to focus on the artist’s performances, drawing out a central theme in his work: time, and the way it shifts cultural values. Unfolding across multiple locations in the museum, the exhibition includes restagings of works such as Sonic Dan (1994–2001), and new works such as A Lick and a Promise (2025), an orchestral commission for 13 instruments, culminating in a pop concert. This survey offers an opportunity to celebrate Prina’s innovative approach to appropriation—one uniquely focused on sound and music—and the rare warmth and intellectualism that mark him as a prescient and still-evolving artist.
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