Our third print issue features Catherine Lacey on worthless pictures; Elif Batuman on Miranda July; Chris Kraus on girlhood; the drawings of Daniel Johnston; poems by Ariana Reines and Eileen Myles; and dispatches on undersea rifts, baby-making on Mars, and climbing Stone Mountain. 

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Own the Archive Sale

This week only, we’re heavily discounting our #PWPress publications to make way for new projects. Find artist-created books for $5, $10, & $15—sales raised from the PW Store are reinvested into funding new, ambitious projects by emerging and underrepresented artists and writers.

Gift Guide

From November 28 through December 14, take 20% off products in the Gift Guide with code: ULTRAFESTIVE. 

Ragas 

Pioneer Works's galleries and garden will be closed this Sunday, October 19 for Ragas Live Festival 2025. Learn more 

June closing

Please note, Pioneer Works will be closed for daily admissions until July 7th. We 

open for ticketed programs, view our calendar 

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Celebrate 10 years of Pioneer Works by shopping the PW Press Archive Sale! Through October 31, take 10% off Pioneer Works Press items with code 

Flash Flood Closures

Building Closures Due to Flash Floods

Due to weather conditions, Pioneer Works is suspending open gallery hours for Friday, September 29. MHYSA's performance has been rescheduled for Sunday, October 1, with all tickets being transferred to the new date.

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Shop the PW Store Spring Sale!

 for the entire month of April and receive an automatic 20% off books, records, apparel, and more. Members save 35%—learn more about membership 

Our galleries and garden are closed to the public today for a United Sounds NYC Festival 2024. Learn more about the festival 

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Pioneer Works will be closed for public visiting hours until May 9, 2026. 

Aura Closure 5/27

Please note:

 will close early at 5pm on Saturday, May 27. Learn more and plan your visit 

CEO Announcement

Just Announced: Pioneer Works Names Mara Manus Chief Executive Officer

The Board of Directors of Pioneer Works is pleased to announce that Mara Manus, former Executive Director for New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), has been appointed as the organization’s new Chief Executive Officer. 

We are grateful for your engagement and support of Pioneer Works over the last year. Now through December 31st, we’re fundraising to meet our end of year goal and close out 2024.

85% of our programming is free or accessibly-priced and we rely on our community of supporters to make that possible. Give now to ensure that we can continue nurturing artists and audiences through 2025.


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PW Closed 11/11

We're closed all day Friday, November 11 for our annual Village Fête Benefit. To learn more about the After Party and get tickets, visit 

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Deinstall Closure

Early Closure

Aura Closure 6/3

 will close early at 5pm on Saturday, June 3. Learn more and plan your visit 

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We're pleased to announce the first major renovation of Pioneer Works! To accommodate the first phase of our construction, we're temporarily relocating to 133 Imlay Street opening in Spring 2022.

Early Closure 5/10/23

Due to programming, Pioneer Works will be closed to the public on Wednesday, May 10. We will be open from Thursday through Sunday for the remainder of the week. Learn more and plan your visit 

Our galleries and garden are currently closed for installation. We will reopen on 

Friday, September 12, 2025, from 7–9 PM

Raúl de Nieves, Tega Brain, and Sam Lavigne

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In collaboration with Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, Graveyard Shift proposes a new way of interacting with the space of the cemetery by activating it through sight, sound, and movement.

There is a reason why only the air of the non-living can make a balloon rise.

It’s a wonder how an unencumbered breath wrapped in rubber can make a wish come true.

They don’t tell you that right before a loved one is buried, circular holes are perforated around the shoulder point of each casket so those that have suffered can join hands.

It’s a secret linkage like those of paper angels streamed together at Christmas.

Each hole cut in us over time is a very precise step in the procedure of construction.

You are not just a paper tattered by holes, you are an angel holding hands, surrounded by many.

Here on hallowed ground soil becomes clogged with tears, sorrow, and embitterment.

It’s not fair the way a blade of grass can carry on while us humans wrestle with the mirage of justice.

The real miracle is the turbulent downpour on a summer’s night.

Only acts of nature have the potency to clear away the debris of human emotion.

while you danced in a rushing river of rain, and locked arms with the person next to you.

Wet bodies swayed into each other, lightly caressing.

We were living maggots breaking down heavy shit in the dark night, arriving hungry and leaving full.

We were learning how to dance through loss.

We were all holed paper that night, becoming the accordion of love.

500 of us made something new in a torrential reality.

The echo of laughter reverberated through the soil, and flowers pushed up, reminding us of awe.

Grief is just love you can’t give to someone anymore.

Graveyard Shift: Circuit des Yeux

August 2019. I was invited to perform at the Cemetery long before the pandemic started.

You can't really come to the cemetery and not think about death or the people who have died. And that's a good thing to think about. We know more about living. But we all die.

I have thought about death as long as I can remember, first as a child and later as an artist. It is hard to know about death because by the time I die, I might not know what is happening. When a death is completed, I will not be here to feel my non-existence.

In many pieces I perform the act of dying. I thought that performing was my practice of dying. But the practice of dying is not dying. We learn about death by attending to other people’s dying.

The pandemic has made death closer to us, but not in a way we can attend to other people’s dying. My mother died before the pandemic. She had a good death. I am sorry for the people who die when so many people also die.

But we also learn about death by missing the dead.

 The Green-Wood Cemetery is now my working place. Every day the ups and downs of the landscape, the shadows of trees and graves that the setting sun casts, and the names on tombstones—some faded, some new—become more familiar.

Personally, I knew no one among the 560,000 dead the cemetery holds. I did not know how my body would relate to this particular, large-scale cemetery. That changed once I began working in the cemetery.

New dirt is brought in, a new grave is dug. New dead are placed among the older dead. Mourners arrive. Flowers are placed, wilt, and are cleaned up. This is a working cemetery witnessing a new surge of the dead. I breathe in the air of the dead, the fall, and the flowers. I pronounce the names of the people buried and cremated there, some a short time ago, many a long time ago. I tell myself that we should not forget those whose graves were never built.

Usually, my rehearsals are no more than a process of choreography, a preparation toward the performance. It is not so in the cemetery.

Dancing with no audience, I am aware that my walk into the site is not the practice of approaching the audience. I am walking among the dead. I imagine myself on a day when the audience 

 be here, only to realize that the graves would be so much closer to me than the audience members. While the sun shifts shadows, leaves have already been changing colors. But the dead remain dead, a sure existence of their non-existence.