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MOCA FOCUS: DIANE SEVERIN NGUYEN DEBUT ON FEBRUARY 27th 2026
Diane Severin Nguyen, WAR SONGS. November 2, 2025, New York. Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and Performa. Photo by Emmie America.

MOCA FOCUS: DIANE SEVERIN NGUYEN DEBUT ON FEBRUARY 27th 2026

FEATURING THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF WAR SONGS

Los Angeles, CA – The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) presents MOCA Focus: Diane Severin Nguyen at WAREHOUSE at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. In the first MOCA Focus presentation to feature a performance work, the California-born, New York-based artist Diane Severin Nguyen (b. 1991, Carson, CA; lives in New York), stages the West Coast premiere of her new performance work WAR SONGS (2025/2026) from February 27–March 1, 2026.

Featuring a cast of eleven performers and with music arranged by Laszlo Horvath, WAR SONGS examines how images and media shape identity, power, and history in Nguyen’s first live performance project. Debuting in November 2025 at the Performa Biennial in New York, WAR SONGS adopted the format of an anti-Vietnam War concert, reinterpreting protest music to examine how the aesthetic forms of past resistance movements generate cultural afterlives that continue to shape our contemporary moment.

WAR SONGS foregrounds music’s capacity to transcend generations, cultures, and national borders. Nguyen harnesses the soft power of pop culture to fracture established narratives and forge new spaces and perspectives unencumbered by time or geography. Synthesizing original monologues and remixed takes on classic anti-war anthems and populist folk songs, WAR SONGS refracts the sound of past resistance through the contemporary zeitgeist, questioning how nostalgia shapes current ideas of freedom, purity, and collective struggle. 

In addition to the formation of an art band and a live performance, this project includes a monographic catalogue offering a multifaceted exploration of music and cultural memory. 

MOCA Focus: Diane Severin Nguyen
WAR SONGS, 2025/2026
Friday, February 27–28, 2026, 7:30 pm
Sunday, March 1, 2026, 6:00 pm

WAREHOUSE at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA 
152 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012 

Tickets: 
$10 MOCA Members; $12 General Admission
Advance tickets are available at moca.org

Credits: 
Musical Director: Laszlo Horvath
Studio Manager: Khanh Van Truong
Scenic Designer: Khanh Van Truong
Set Designer: Cherisse Gray
Lighting Designer: Sean Peloso
Costume Designer: Willa Schwabsky
Special Effects Engineer: Dearon Panossian
Production Assistant: Cléo Suong Mai Richez

Performers: 
Brock Bierly (vocals and drums); Sharleen Chidiac (vocals and guitar); Keizo Fish (vocals and keys); Leah Hennessey (vocals and guitar); Laszlo Horvath (vocals and guitar); Rachel Jihye Han (vocals, guitar, and violin); Liana Kurogi (vocals); Jurrell Lewis (vocals); Kara Lu (vocals and drums); Emily Nunes (vocals and guitar); and Van To (vocals and guitar)

“With WAR SONGS, Diane Severin Nguyen extends her rigorous engagement with images, sound, and history into the realm of live performance, transforming protest music into a lens through which to examine how cultural memory is formed, circulated, and reactivated. By revisiting the aesthetics of past resistance, the work invites audiences to consider how these forms continue to shape contemporary ideas of power, identity, and collective struggle,” says MOCA Associate Curator Alex Sloane.

WHO

Diane Severin Nguyen (b. 1991, Carson, CA; lives in New York) works with photography, video, installation, and performance. Through material and sculptural experimentation, Nguyen approaches the photographic moment as one of transformation. She is particularly interested in exceeding photography as a mode of documentation and engages with it rather as a set of conditions shaped by desire and speculation. Her moving-image works examine the histories of power, victimhood, and forms of propaganda that underpin cultural and self-image-making. Her recent solo and group exhibitions have taken place at the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, the Whitney Museum of American Art, SculptureCenter, The Renaissance Society, Rockbund Art Museum, MoMA PS1, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Schinkel Pavillon, Jeu de Paume, and the Hammer Museum, among others. Her films have been presented at prestigious film festivals, including the New York Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Berlinale and Woche der Kritik. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023.

Laszlo Horvath (b. 1996, New York; lives in New York) is a composer and artist. He released his debut solo album, I Don’t Have That Problem, in January 2025, prior to which he fronted the band Laszlo and the Hidden Strength. His work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including the 2024 Prismatic Ground film festival and the 15th Baltic Triennial. He precomposed and live-scored the performance work The Pig Trade at the library and project space EARTH this past summer.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART (MOCA)
Founded in 1979, MOCA is the defining museum of contemporary art. In a relatively short period of time, MOCA has achieved astonishing growth; a world-class collection of nearly 8,000 objects, international in scope with deep holdings in Los Angeles art; hallmark education programs that are widely emulated; award-winning publications that present original scholarship; groundbreaking monographic, touring, and thematic exhibitions of international repute that survey the art of our time; and cutting-edge engagement with modes of new media production. MOCA is a not-for-profit institution that relies on a variety of funding sources for its activities.

WAREHOUSE at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
WHEN
Beginning on: February 27, 2026
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