Stephen Prina's 37-Year Project Exquisite Corpse at MoMA

Stephen Prina's lifelong project Exquisite Corpse: The Complete Paintings of Manet (1988–) is featured in a solo exhibition at MoMA, New York, from September 12 to December 13, 2025. The project remakes Manet's 556 paintings by replicating dimensions and paratextual information but replacing the image with sepia ink washes, creating ghostlike works that critique the collapse of the image in modernism. Prina, a CalArts graduate (1980) and early postmedium artist, works across sculpture, painting, video, sound, and performance. His practice includes Monochrome Painting (1988–89), which reimagines monochromes by Malevich, Klein, Reinhardt, and Ryman in Volkswagen's Papyrus Green; As He Remembered It (2011), coating R.M. Schindler's furniture in Pantone's Honeysuckle Pink; and collaborations with Wade Guyton at Petzel (2010–2019). Prina also released a solo album Push Comes to Love (1999) on Drag City, with lyrics by Dennis Cooper, David Grubbs, Mayo Thompson, and Lynne Tillman. The exhibition is reviewed by Jeremy Gloster in ArtReview's September 2025 issue.