P.S.1 MUSEUM — Fall Exhibitions Preview Invitation, 1989

The Institute for Contemporary Art / P.S.1 Museum, Long Island City, New York, 1989. Single reception card, 21 × 10.5 cm. Offset print on light card stock; recto printed, verso blank.

Issued for the Fall Exhibitions Preview, 15 October 1989, presenting Catherine Beaugrand, André Cadere (1934–78), and Raymond Hains. Three positions brought together under one printed roof. The card does not interpret them. It hosts them.

A cropped view of the P.S.1 roofline is used as the stable visual support while names, dates, and programmes are passed across it. The same image appears on other P.S.1 invitations from the period, placing this card less in the register of design than in that of reuse: an administrative image kept in circulation.

As object, it reads as a minor institutional readymade: architecture reduced to sign, invitation reduced to function, exhibition reduced to list. A small transfer object in which authorship is shared between venue, programme, typography, and repetition.

Condition: Very good. Light handling wear, minor corner softening, light age toning, blank reverse clean overall. Original period item.