The Living Temple: The World of Moki Cherry

Showcasing colorful textiles, costumes, posters, ceramics, sculpture, video, sound, and archival materials, the exhibition highlights her holistic practice which dissolved the boundaries between home and stage, art and everyday life.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Moki lived and worked between Sweden and New York, developing a radically interdisciplinary practice. Together with her partner, legendary jazz musician Don Cherry, they created immersive, joyful happenings under the banners of “Movement Incorporated” and “Organic Music.” Their collaborations entwined music, theater, performance, and visual art in experimental ways, forging hybrid audiovisual spectacles that challenged hierarchies in music and art, creating a total experience that defied genre. Shaped by an itinerant life, Moki’s work drew from global artistic traditions without being confined to a single cultural lineage, and explored themes of ecology, spirituality, feminism, and the home as both stage and subject. Bringing together some of her most significant works, The Living Temple: The World of Moki Cherry surveys how her radical, interdisciplinary vision proposed new models for creating, learning, and collaboration that continue to resonate today.

IMAGE CREDIT: Moki Cherry, Title Unknown (Dragon), 1975. Textile appliqué tapestry (silk, cotton, mixed fabrics), 78 3/4 x 137 13/16 inches. Photograph by Anders Sune Berg, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen.