The Industry focuses on live performance, creating new institutional frameworks as required by each artistic project, whether in terms of spectatorship, collectivity, or relationships between artworks and audiences. The resulting productions often move away from traditional theater structures and into the city’s landscape. In spring 2027, cocurators Tim Griffin and Malik Gaines will present Sable Elyse Smith: If you unfolded us, an immersive multimedia work originally organized by Martha Joseph and May Makki at The Museum of Modern Art’s Studio Sound series. 

Sable Elyse Smith, If you unfolded us, 2024 (performance view). Pictured: S T A R R busby. Produced in collaboration with composer David Dominique and vocalist Freddie June. Organized as part of Studio Sound: Sable Elyse Smith, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 3–14, 2024. © The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Jonathan Dorado

The project marks Smith’s first operatic work and features a libretto by the artist, music by composer David Dominique, and performances by vocalist Freddie June. The opera follows an unfolding love story between two Black women: MAIN, a 911 operator, and LOVER, a DJ who may represent a fragment of MAIN’s interior self, charting a journey of queer intimacy, crisis, and self-realization.

While Sable Elyse Smith (b.1986, Los Angeles), is known for her work in photography, text, video, and sound, If you unfolded us expands her vocabulary within the art form of opera. Featuring a chamber ensemble, two voices, and seven songs, the presentation at MoMA evoked a nightclub through installation and projected video. Working closely with Smith, Griffin and Gaines will adapt the piece from its original museum format to a nightclub setting, expanding both its scale and its spatial intimacy. For The Industry’s presentation, Smith will be returning to her native Los Angeles.

Studio Sound: Sable Elyse Smith, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 3–14, 2024. © The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Jonathan Dorado

Tim Griffin is Artistic and Executive Director of The Industry. He was previously Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen (2011–21), where he developed projects with artists including Chantal Akerman, ANOHNI, Charles Atlas, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Joan Jonas, Ralph Lemon, Aki Sasamoto, Wadada Leo Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, and Danh Vo. He organized partnerships for presentations of historical work by Gretchen Bender and Julius Eastman and created the electronic music series Synth Nights, collaborating with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Laurel Halo, and Musica Elettronica Viva. As Editor of Artforum (2003–10), he organized special issues on performance, the legacy of minimalism, museums in the contemporary context, and art and poetry. Griffin’s forthcoming book, Compression (Sternberg Press, 2026), discusses contemporary artists’ engagements with memory and time. In 2015, he was awarded the insignia of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

Malik Gaines is an artist, writer, and composer. He served as Artistic Co-Director of The Industry (2021–24) and is now an Artistic Director Cooperative Emeritus. With Alexandro Segade, he recently composed and directed Star Choir (2023), a music and video work. Gaines co-founded the musical performance art group My Barbarian, which has been featured in major exhibitions including the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the 2009 Baltic Triennial at the Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius, LT). My Barbarian was also the subject of a two-part survey at the Whitney in 2021. Gaines has contributed essays to museum catalogues and artist’s books for Lorraine O’Grady, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Senga Nengudi, among others. He is the author of Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left (NYU Press, 2017) and is currently working on a book project supported by a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Gaines is Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. 

Martha Joseph is a curator of contemporary art, sound, and performance. As Associate Curator in Media and Performance at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, she has organized exhibitions, commissions, and performances with artists such as Sable Elyse Smith, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Yve Laris Cohen, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Guadalupe Maravilla, Pamela Z, Suzanne Ciani, Sarah Davachi, and David Tudor. With Ana Janevski and Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, she co-organized Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done (2018). Her writing has been published by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (Seoul); the Whitney Museum of American Art; Bonner Kunstverein (Bonn, DE); and MoMA. Joseph previously held curatorial positions at the Whitney and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). She received her MA in the History of Art from Williams College; BA in Art History from Oberlin College; and BM in Vocal Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory.

May Makki is an independent curator and writer. From 2022 to 2025, she was Curatorial Assistant, Media and Performance at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (New York), where she contributed to the programming of the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio, focusing on new commissions and presentations of live and time-based art. She was the 2024–25 Curatorial AIRspace Resident at Abrons Arts Center (New York). She has previously held curatorial and research positions at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University (New York), MoMA PS1 (New York), and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha). Her writing and interviews have been published in Art in America, Art21, and Screen Slate, among others. She holds an MA from the the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College and a BA from the University of Chicago.

Valerie Cassel Oliver, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)