Join us at the closing reception of PS1’s 2026 Art Auction {ENTER↵FOREVER} for a night of drinks, revelry, & EMPTY ORCHESTRA with artist Jesse Malmed! Place your final bids before the auction closes at 8pm!

WHAT IS EMPTY ORCHESTRA?

A participatory installation and interactive performance at the collision of cathexis and catharsis, art appropriation and appreciation, the liberatory potential of song and the alienation of a machine collaborator, activated and actuated by a porous proscenium of players. Or, let’s say, karaoke.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jesse Malmed is an artist, curator and educator living and working in video, performance, text, installation, events, occasional objects, their gaps and overlaps and Chicago and Milwaukee. His works play in sub- and counter-cultural histories, like a joke that's a poem that's a song covering itself, a shadow puppet interfering in the broadcast beam, having déjà vu for the first time, or watching a time travel sequence in reverse. Engaging with a range of publics, his entanglements and propositions include instigating the poster platform Western Pole, co-driving artist bumper sticker project Trunk Show, directing the Live to Tape Artist Television Festival, programming with ACRE TV and the Nightingale Cinema, permanent guest hosting contemporary art radio show Bad at Sports, slinging wares and wears via Jetsy Merchblatt, and recording and assisting the kindergarten a capella noise ensemble Huskies Floorchestra. He has performed, screened and exhibited at museums, microcinemas, film festivals, galleries, bars and barns. Raised in Santa Fe, he attended Bard College and the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His work has engaged karaoke in various ways since 2006.