MOCA presents the West Coast premiere of Diane Severin Nguyen’s first live performance, WAR SONGS (2025/2026).

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. Debuting at the Performa 2025 Biennial in New York, WAR SONGS adopts the format of an anti-Vietnam War concert and demonstrates how the structures of historic protest movements can generate enduring cultural afterlives.

WAR SONGS foregrounds music’s capacity to transcend generations, cultures, and national borders. Synthesizing original monologues alongside remixed takes on classic anti-war anthems and populist folk songs, Ngueyn refracts the sounds and textures of past resistance through the contemporary zeitgeist and questions how nostalgia shapes current ideas of freedom, purity, and collective struggle.

Please be advised that WAR SONGS features strobe effects.

WAR SONGS Performance & Production Credits
Concept, direction, and original script: Diane Severin Nguyen
Musical Director: Laszlo Horvath
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)
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

MOCA Focus: Diane Severin Nguyen WAR SONGS is the fourth exhibition in the relaunched MOCA Focus series. MOCA Focus: Diane Severin Nguyen WAR SONGS is organized by Alex Sloane, Associate Curator, with Emilia Nicholson-Fajardo, Curatorial Assistant, and is produced by Amelia Charter, Producer of Performance and Programs with Michele Huizar, former Performance Coordinator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Begun in 1992, the original MOCA Focus was dedicated to presentations of distinct bodies of work by artists working in all media and featured a roster of distinguished local and international artists, including Renée Green (1993), Franz West (1994), Margaret Honda (1994–5), Toba Khedoori (1997), Catherine Opie (1997–8), and Jorge Pardo (1998). MOCA Focus quickly became core to the museum's mission and identity as the artist's museum. Over a subsequent three-year period in the mid-2000s, the series was revived briefly but powerfully, featuring primarily Los Angeles-based artists and representing the first Los Angeles museum exhibition for artists including Eric Wesley (2006), Lecia Dole-Recio (2006), Alexandra Grant (2007), and Sterling Ruby (2008). With this relaunch MOCA provides artists a critical opportunity to have their first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles, which includes a monographic catalogue. MOCA Focus: Diane Severin Nguyen is accompanied by a Nimoy Emerging Artist Publication Series catalogue offering a multifaceted exploration of music and cultural memory. 

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, as well as 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.

Diane Severin Nguyen, WAR SONGS, was organized for the Performa 2025 Biennial by Job Piston, Curator at Large, with Madeleine Seidel, Assistant Curator, and was produced by Adrienne Swan, Associate Producer, Performa.

Diane Severin Nguyen, WAR SONGS (2025/2026), is a Performa Commission, co-commissioned by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Presenting support is provided by Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss.

Major support is provided by the MOCA Global Council.

Publication support is provided by the Nimoy Fund for Emerging Artists.

This performance is made possible by generous endowment support from Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family, the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation Fund to Support the Work of Emerging Artists, and from The Director’s Commissioning Fund.

Performances at MOCA are supported by the MOCA Fund for Performance with generous funding provided by Betsy Greenberg and The Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.

Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs is founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.