Member Calendar MAR APR Mar–Apr 2019 “I never get over wondering at your prodigiousness,” MoMA founding director Alfred H. Barr Jr. mused admiringly to Lincoln Kirstein in 1945. Indeed, the extent of Kirstein’s influence on American culture in the 1930s and ’40s is hard to overstate. Best known for having cofounded, with the Russian choreographer George Balanchine, the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet, Kirstein was also a key figure in MoMA’s early history. Organizing exhibitions, writing catalogue essays, donating works to the Museum, and making acquisitions on its behalf, Kirstein championed a vision of modernism that favored figuration over abstraction and argued for an interdisciplinary marriage between the arts. Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern (Member Previews start March 13) invites you to rediscover rich areas of MoMA’s collection through the eyes of this impresario and tastemaker. The nearly 300 works on view include set and costume designs for the ballet; photography that explores American themes; sculpture that finds inspiration in folk art and classicism; finely rendered realist and magic-realist paintings; and the Latin American works that Kirstein purchased for the Museum in 1942. Some of these works might be old favorites, while others may represent new discoveries. The same is true for the Museum’s wide-ranging offerings this spring: the objects in The Value of Good Design may be things you use in your daily life; the paintings in Joan Miró: The Birth of the World may be familiar friends; while the recent acquisitions in New Order: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century have mostly not been seen before. This dynamic mix of the familiar and the fresh is exactly what MoMA’s collection is all about. I never get over wondering at its prodigiousness. Walker Evans. Lincoln Kirstein. c. 1931. Gelatin silver print, 6 × 4" (16.2 × 11.4 cm). Gift of the artist. © 2019 Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Pull-out calendar: Art Lab: Nature. Photo: Martin Seck; Come Together 2018. Photo: Kevin Aranibar; Member Opening Reception. Photo: Christiana Rifaat; Painting and Sculpture Galleries. Shown: Marcel Duchamp. Bicycle Wheel. 1951 (third version, after lost original of 1913). Metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool, 51 × 25 × 16 1/2" (129.5 × 63.5 × 41.9 cm). The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. Samantha Friedman © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/Estate of Marcel Duchamp. Photo: Ryan Lowry; Family Art Workshops. Photo: Martin Seck; Member After Hours. Shown: Ursula von Rydingsvard. Bent Lace. 2014. Bronze. Gift of Agnes Gund in honor of David Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints Rockefeller on his 100th birthday. Photo: Fiona Veronique A New MoMA 4–7 Nancy Spero 16 Highlights Mariette Rissenbeek 20 Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern 8–9 My Favorite Work 26–27 Programs 29–31 New Order 12 On October 21 we’ll open the new MoMA, with the stunning You’re part of a new moment galleries and spaces you helped make possible. As a member, you’ll experience our reimagined museum first. With a third more gallery space, we’ll be able to share more art in new ways. Recognizing that there is no single history of modern and contemporary art, we’ll be mixing mediums— from painting to performance—and ideas to present an exhilaratingly broad view of the art of our time. You’ll still find Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, but we’ll also celebrate more art by women and by artists from diverse backgrounds and geographies. A state- of-the-art studio will bring live and experimental programming to the heart of our galleries, including artist commissions, and you’ll be able drop in to a dedicated new space anytime for lively conversations and art making. You’re going to find something new every time you visit. 4 5 You’ll see the new MoMA first And in the meantime... Mark your calendars for an all-day member event on June 16 to help us celebrate this historic moment in MoMA’s evolution and future. After this, we’ll begin the exciting process of installation in preparation for our opening in October. During this period, the Museum will be closed to the public. Until then, join us for our spring season of must-see exhibitions, and visit MoMA PS1, which will remain open throughout 2019. As always, you can ask us questions at [email protected]. You can also learn more about the project at moma.org/newmoma. Your membership supports our mission and enlivens our community, and we’re thrilled you’ll be with us during the incredible year ahead. See you soon! Exterior view of The Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street. © 2019 Diller Scofidio + Renfro We reimagined the member experience, too. Not only will you see the new MoMA first, you’ll always enjoy it in the best way possible. Whether you’re spending the day—or an hour—at the Museum exploring the galleries, taking in a performance, making art, or relaxing, we always want you to feel at home. Your membership includes: — Opening events and early access to the new MoMA — Members-only entrance and coat check — Exclusive programs offering access to new exhibitions — Shopping and dining discounts 6 7 New Paul Cadmus. Set design for the ballet Filling Station. 1937. Cut-and-pasted paper, gouache, and pencil on paper, 8 × 10 7/8" (20.3 × 27.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1941. © 2019 Estate of Paul Cadmus Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern Mar 17–Jun 16 Member Previews: Mar 13–16 Member Early Hours: Mar 13–31, 9:30–10:30 a.m. Member Gallery Talk: Apr 3, 12:30 p.m. “I have a live eye,” proclaimed Lincoln Kirstein, signaling his wide-ranging vision. Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern explores this polymath’s sweeping contributions to American cultural life in the 1930s and ’40s. Best known for cofounding the New York City Ballet with the choreographer George Balanchine, Kirstein (1907–1996), a writer, critic, curator, impresario, and tastemaker, was also a key figure in MoMA’s early history. With his prescient belief in the role of dance within the museum, his championing of figuration in the face of prevailing abstraction, and his position at the center of a New York network of queer artists, intimates, and collaborators, Kirstein’s impact remains profoundly resonant today. Bringing together some 300 rarely seen artworks alongside materials drawn from the Museum’s Archives, the exhibition illuminates Kirstein’s influence on the Museum’s collecting, exhibition, and publication history. The wide array of works includes set and costume designs for the ballet by Paul Cadmus and Jared French, photographs by Walker Evans and George Platt Lynes, realist and magic- realist paintings by Honoré Sharrer and Pavel Tchelitchew, sculpture by Elie Nadelman and Gaston Lachaise, and Latin American art that Kirstein acquired for the Museum by artists such as Antonio Berni and Raquel Forner. Together, these works reveal an alternative and expansive view of modern art. Elie Nadelman. Man in the Open Air. c. 1915. Bronze, 54 1/2" (138.4 cm) high, 11 3/4 � 21 1/2" (29.9 � 54.6 cm) at base. Gift of William S. Paley (by 8 The Museum of Modern Art, Floor 3 exchange). © 2019 Estate of Elie Nadelman 9 Lincoln Kirstein and Film Culture Apr 11–24 To Have and Have Not. 1944. USA. Directed by Howard Hawks. Courtesy Warner Bros/Photofest Modern Matinees B Is for Bacall The Public Enemy. 1931. USA. Directed by William A. Wellman. The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive Mar 1–Apr 26 Members can reserve free film tickets in person and at moma.org/film. In 2016 Modern Matinees presented B Is for Bogart, so this tribute to Lauren Members can reserve free film tickets in person and at moma.org/film. Bacall (American, 1924–2014)—Humphrey Bogart’s partner in life and costar in four iconic films—is perhaps overdue. Bacall’s defining characteristics onscreen— Though Lincoln Kirstein is best known today for his vital role in establishing a strong, independent, smart, opinionated—mirrored her accomplishments in distinctively American idiom for ballet, his considerable contributions to film life as an actor, political activist, and author. culture are less well remembered. As editor of the influential little magazine Hound & Horn—one of the few publications of its kind to offer a sustained The Bronx native was famously “discovered” on the cover of Harperʼs Bazaar commentary on cinema—he provided an early platform to such era-defining in 1943 by Howard Hawks; she debuted in his To Have and Have Not the following critics as Harry Potamkin. year. Playing resolute women who held their own, spoke their minds, and guarded a tender heart in films like The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Kirstein, too, was a perspicacious writer on the movies, penning essays about Largo (1948), she became an enduring film noir icon. Meanwhile she and Bogart, everything from Hollywood stars like James Cagney and Marilyn Monroe to whom she married in 1945, were active politically, traveling to DC in 1947 to newsreels and French film under the Occupation. He was also among the founding oppose the House Un-American Activities Committee. directors of one of the first film societies in the country. That organization’s brief yet remarkable five-program run in 1933—a heterogeneous lineup in which Bacall never stopped evolving—her six-decade career was a varied, challenging pathbreaking avant-garde efforts commingled with documentary studies, Disney collage of projects with everyone from Barbra Streisand to Vincente Minnelli, cartoons, and even a silent serial episode—will be reconstructed as part of this and Robert Altman, Lars von Trier—but one thing remained constant: she could survey of Kirstein’s omnivorous cinephilia.