Or the History of Art As Visual

GEN GENEALOGES OF ART OF GENEALOGES EA

With Alfred H. Barr, Jr.’s 1936 diagram of the flow of art in the twentieth century at its core, the exhibition Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art LOG IES brings together visual representations of the history of art by artists and art historians, from the genealogical trees of the seventeenth century to today’s visual online diagrams, including paintings, sketches, maps, plans, prints, drawings, diagrams, and information graphics. The resulting overview counterbalances the usual discursive presentations of art history and shows how the visual narratives that museums and exhibitions offer have true and irreplaceable meaning for that same history. With contributions by Manuel Fontán del Junco, Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt, Manuel Lima, Uwe Fleckner and Eugenio Carmona. OR THE OF HISTORY OF ART AS VISUAL ART ART

My credo… … for Art In the History beginning is: was the eye, not the word

Otto Pächt GEN EA LOG IES

October 11, 2019 February 26 to January 12, 2020 to May 31, 2020 OR THE OF HISTORY OF ART AS VISUAL ART ART

Manuel Fontán del Junco, José Lebrero Stals and María Zozaya Álvarez, eds.

With texts by Manuel Fontán del Junco, Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt, Manuel Lima, Uwe Fleckner and Eugenio Carmona CONTENTS

The Words The Images Page Page

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p.10 p. 14 p. 28 p. 60 p.132 p. 328 p. 454 p. 82

Images, Words, The The Art of The Trees of Rhetoric of Barr, Cubism List of Works and Works in the Things Diagrammatic the Diagram Knowledge Synoptic Vision and Picasso Documents in the Exhibition About this Eye and the Diagrammatic Collecting Paradigm Exhibition Exhibition Curatorial Traditions from Images as an Act and “Counter- p. 85 p. 147 p. 152 p. 178 p. 236 p. 266 p. 343 Imagination the Middle of Historiography: Paradigm”: p. 466 Ages to the Aby Warburg, 1936–1946 Index of Names 1 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3 Renaissance Carl Einstein, of the Artists and The History Alfred H. Barr, From Japanese From Odilon From Machine From Surrealism, The History and some of their Authors in the of Art as Jr.: A Genealogy Prints to Cubism Redon to Esthetic to Dada, Bauhaus of Art as Contemporaries Exhibition Visual Art, I for Modern Art (1850–1910) Constructivism Purism and De and Modern Visual Art, I I (1681–1934) (1936) (1895–1915) Stijl Architecture to (1936–2019) p. 470 Manuel Fontán Astrit Schmidt- Manuel Lima Uwe Fleckner Eugenio Carmona (1910–1920) Geometrical Bibliography del Junco Burkhardt and Organic Abstraction p. 480 (1920–1935) Credits

8 9 based primarily on texts (illustrated or not). Rather, the exhibition is about modes of visually narrating history (specifically, the history of art), from a specific curatorial position, with one foot in curatorial practice IMAGES, (and a self-awareness of this practice) and the other in visual thinking, particularly literary theories and the field of visual studies. It is also an exhibition about another exhibition, the extraordinary Cubism and Ab- stract Art, and a show about the creator of the world’s first museum of modern art and the first “curator” in the contemporary sense of the term, WORDS, Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. (1902–1981). For these two last reasons, Geneal- ogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art is, furthermore, an exercise in reconstructing what was perhaps the most ambitious (and earliest) attempt to provide the art of the first half of the 20th century with a real THINGS canon and a genealogy that spans almost three generations. **** ABOUT THIS EXHIBITION The Fundación Juan March and the Museo Picasso Málaga would like to thank all of the people and institutions who, together with our teams, have made this project into a reality. Readers of the catalog will have seen in the preceding pages a long and justly detailed account of our appreciations. In addition, we are grateful to the Goverment of Madrid for a travel grant that allowed Marta Suárez-Infiesta, the current Head of Projects in the Department of Museums and Exhibitions at the Fun- dación Juan March, to work for the month of June 2015 on documents relating to Alfred H. Barr, Jr. in the MoMA archives in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. We also thank the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Andalusia for their support for projects he exhibition this catalog accompanies is a joint of this type. effort by the two institutions that have conceived, organized and are ultimately presenting the show in their spaces: the Museo Picasso Málaga **** and the Fundación Juan March in Madrid. The aim of Genealogies of Our very special thanks go to the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art, from its inception, has been to Massachusetts) for their support in this project, by awarding a resi- render visible a distinctive fact that has conditioned traditional ways of dential fellowship that allowed Manuel Fontán del Junco to conduct thinking about works of art and of telling their story. research there as a Clark Fellow in the extraordinary conditions they This fact can be formulated into the following question: if the focus provide, from June through August 2016, leading to this exhibition. The of art history is to study a type of artifact whose differentiating char- assistance of the librarians and the entire staff of the Clark Art Insti- acteristic is that it is made to be seen, shouldn’t this also be present in tute, the moments shared with Michael Ann Holly, Ilia Doronchenkov, the manner in which its history is told? The exhibition and this catalog Molly Brunson, Xavier Bray, Hakkan Nilsson, Keith Moxey and Hal start from the firm position that yes, it must. The history of objects that Foster, among others, the productive lunch seminars with colleagues have been made to be seen, and admired, must also be visualized, and and professors from a number of universities, and the vital assistance not only explained or read. Or at least, it should be more possible to of John Krimbiel (Williams College) were absolutely essential to this re- visualize this history than, say, the history of economics or pisciculture. search. Equally important was the presence, on the exhibition’s curatori- This is one of the reasons why Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as al team, of Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt (University of Vienna), the scholar Visual Art exhibits—that is, places on view—a selection from the many with the greatest knowledge of the so-called “diagrammatic shift” in the visual representations of the history of art (i.e. genealogical trees, clas- history of art, whose research and publications since 2005 helped set the sification charts, diagrams and the like) that have been used throughout course developed in this exhibition and in these pages. The same must that same history, as part of the alternative methods of argument on the be said of the essays by Eugenio Carmona (University of Málaga), Uwe evolution and transformations of art. Fleckner (Humboldt University in Berlin and the Warburg Institute in The exhibition is therefore an attempt, and an admittedly risky one, Hamburg), Manuel Lima (a researcher specializing in the visualization to visually recount the history of the visual arts. The show is divided of information and a member of the Royal Society of Arts, London), all into three sections: the first and last sections show by way of example of whom participated in the project and contributed to its final shape. many if not all of the visual representations of the history of art, amply defined, made by artists, designers, illustrators, historians, essayists, **** poets, writers, and art critics and theorists, ranging from the early ge- Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art aspires to make nealogical trees dating to the Renaissance through to modern and con- visible a panorama of visual representations that is broad enough to temporary diagrams and even virtual presentations that can be found complement the usual discursive representations of the history of art. at present on the internet. The middle section of the exhibition takes to It strives to achieve a balance between theoretical thought and visual re- heart the initial question on the visualization of the history of art, and flection, a balance that contributes to the progress of knowledge and to engages in a visual experiment, by materializing one of these represen- the enjoyment and critical education of the public, consistent with the tations, or diagrams, within the exhibition space (an experiment which, aims of exhibitions that are conceived by institutions working in areas to a degree, is also carried out in the pages of this catalog). The diagram beyond entertainment. And undoubtedly, the exhibition endeavors to that was chosen for this experiment is the famous diagram devised by break out of the dry channel that runs between the so-called “two his- Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New tories of art”: on the one hand, the history written from an academically York (MoMA) in 1929 and its first director, for the cover of the catalog of specialized perspective, and on the other, the unspecific mere dissem- the pioneering 1936 MoMA exhibition, Cubism and Abstract Art. Barr’s ination of art, which many believe is present in numerous exhibitions. intention with this diagram was to make visible the genealogy of mod- It is an attempt to cross the channel of a river that should be shared by ern art from 1890 to 1936 that he reconstructed in the exhibition and the university and the museum, where sometimes turbulent and excit- discussed at length in the texts he wrote for the catalog. ing waters flow. Now it is time for the readers, and especially those who The current exhibition brings together a broad roster of artists and have come to see the exhibition, to judge if this effort has been worth- authors who have been involved in visual thinking, and includes a wide while. Of course, it should be judged not just upon reading these pages, variety of visual representations of this thought: genealogical trees, but more so after viewing what is being shown in the exhibition, in the charts, allegories and diagrams made over a span of time from the 17th space that is more justly its own. century to today. The tally for the exhibition, in absolute numbers, is 230 artists and authors, 350 works and more than a hundred documents. Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art is far from being a Madrid–Málaga, 2019–2020 collective show or thematic exhibition focused on a selection of representations of the history of art that share the peculiarity of not being Fundación Juan March Museo Picasso Málaga

10 11 Installation view of the exhibition Bauhaus 1919–1928 held at MoMA in 1939. The Museum of Modern Art, Photographic Archive, New York THE THE CURA DIA TORIAL GRAMM IMAG ATIC EYE INATION AND Manuel Fontán del Junco My credo for art history is: hen something is cre- in the beginning was the eye, not the word. ated to be seen, it must therefore be looked at. Otto Pächt, 1977 But what should we do with the narratives that tell us about how artifacts were created for that A work of art should teach us always purpose? And those that tell us not only how that we have not seen what we see. they were created, by whom, why and when? Paul Valéry, 1894 And those that narrate which ones influenced, years later, the creation of others, or may have Of course I feel that we should all be the wiser if inspired some, but not others? How do we Meyer Schapiro would publish a history approach the genealogical narratives of art of modern art from the social point of view. that establish relationships through time and Alfred H. Barr, Jr., 1936 space, as if these were like father and son, or of ancestral origin, or bound by kinship or social group? All of these histories that together make up the history of one area of culture—artistic creation, for instance—must be written, to be preserved and to be told; and of course, to be read. Yet, since the objects of artistic creation were made primarily to be seen, shouldn’t these histories be not only read, but seen? Wouldn’t it be good to tell them not only through words, but through images, or through a combination of image and text? Or is the history of art only to be read, but not seen? A history of art that could only be read would be as strange as a history of literature told exclusively through ideograms, or accessible only through picto- graphs. Experience teaches us that sometimes the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very true, and so it is, for example, in Mark Tansey’s The Triumph of the New York School [fig. 1], a work that quite effectively and synoptically says what it took Serge Guilbaut 288 pages to argue in his book, How New York Fernand Braudel: with words, more than with Fig. 1. Mark Tansey, The The aim of this exhibition is to focus on the Stole the Idea of Modern Art.1 images, and certainly more than with works Triumph of the New York eminently visual nature of the object itself of of art themselves. True, most histories of art School, 1984. Oil on the history of art—the object being the work of To present textually, and represent visually are illustrated histories, but almost all, from canvas, 188 x 304.8 cm. art—and to provide a non-exhaustive overview Plutarch to Gombrich, favor text over image. In The Whitney Museum of of attempts to represent this history visually As has already been noted, Genealogies of Art, fact, when images are given priority in a pub- American Art, New York rather than through text. So, in addition to or the History of Art as Visual Art places on lication, the perception is often that scientific Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt’s full and synthetic view a wide selection of representations of this rigor has given way to visual entertainment, view of what has come to be known as the “dia- history of art, a history whose very purpose and the publication’s position is demoted from grammatic turn” of art history (pp. 28–59), the and nature seem to also demand a visual nar- vertical library stack to horizontal coffee table. first and third sections (pp. 85–129 & 343–451) rative, or at the least a narrative where images Like most exhibition catalogs, these books are of the catalog entries of the works in the exhi- are freed from their subordinate function as not read as much as looked through, and it’s no bition are devoted to this type of representa- mere illustrations of history texts. accident that they are among the customary tion, from the oldest [fig. 2, cat. 1] to the most The fact is that the history of art has been set of props used in interior decoration and de- contemporary [fig. 3, cat. 399]. built primarily from the same raw material as sign magazines, and conversely, are conspicu- The exhibition brings together visual rep- all other histories of history, from Herodotus to ously absent from scientific bibliographies. resentations of the history of art made by

16 THE DIAGRAMMATIC EYE AND THE CURATORIAL IMAGINATION—MANUEL FONTÁN DEL JUNCO 17 Fig. 3. Yvan Etienne, things. At most, a book can have illustrations, Fig. 4. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Brice Jeannin and which are, in other words, reproductions of front cover, Cubism and Matthieu Saladin things.2 And, as James Elkins has persuasive- Abstract Art [exh. cat., (eds.), “Sound Space ly argued, any attempt to reduce a book of The Museum of Modern Timeline,” from Tacet: Art, New York, March art history exclusively to images without text Sound in the Arts: De 2–April 19, 1936]. l’espace sonore = From produces a result that is only eccentric, failed New York: The Museum 3 sound space. Dijon: Les and ineffective as narrative. of Modern Art, 1936. Presses du réel, 2014. Together, works of art, their reproductions Archivo Lafuente Poster. Offset print on and texts on both can only “have a place” in the paper, 66 x 61.5 cm. spaces of an exhibition and more generally of a Fundación Juan March museum, and this is exactly what produces the Library, Madrid equal and absolute need for the histories of the history of art to be visual as well, and for the histories of art developed academically and in museums and exhibitions to complement each other.

How to see images as images

We see reality and see images; they are both ubiquitous and continual. Today we live surrounded by images, some of which we call “works of art.” But if we want to know what images and the reality they reproduce are, as such, beyond the use we give them as a means and an integral part of the almost uncon- sciously iconic world we live in, the question is how to see realities as realities and images as images; in other words, as realities and not as a means for something else. In order to do so, we must “alienate” them, or create a temporal and spatial distance from them. We need to submit these images and the reality they reproduce, and in general the whole context in which we routinely perceive reality, to a process of distancing. This distancing from the real can also be achieved through reflection and its artistic elaboration through words (as in philosophy, history and literature) and through the use Fig. 2. Filippo Baldinucci, artists and art historians, from the first ge- of art history—its genealogical trees, visual of the images themselves, in the way they “Albero della casa di nealogical trees dating to the Renaissance, representations, charts and diagrams—is the are used in the visual arts, and scenic arts in Cimabue” [Genealogical to the most current information graphs, and best way to highlight the reason for exhibiting particular. History is full of examples of such tree of the Cimabue includes paintings, sketches, maps, plans, (i.e. for bringing into view) works of art in exhi- exercises in distancing. A good example of a family], from Notizie de’ prints, drawings, diagrams and tables by a bitions and museum collections, a reason that literary reworking of the power of images is H. Professori del Disegno broad variety of authors and artists, from Aby makes the visual medium of the exhibition, as G. Wells’s fantastic short story, The Country da Cimabue in qua Warburg (a peculiar case among historians, a tool of historical knowledge, into something of the Blind, published in Strand Magazine in [Accounts of Professors of Design from Cimabue to and the first to fully develop an understand- that text cannot replace. 1904. In this story, Wells gets us to think about Now]. Florence: Per Santi ing of images as a teaching and research tool In the following pages, my wish is to de- what seeing really is, thanks to the adventures Franchi, 1681, vol. I, [cat. 32], a subject addressed in Uwe Fleck- velop this idea on curatorial praxis, taking as (and especially the surprising misadventures) p. 7 [XV]. Biblioteca ner’s essay for this catalog (pp. 132–45)), Um- a model Cubism and Abstract Art, the exhibi- of a person who has sight but lives in the land Nacional de España, berto Boccioni, Kazimir Malevich, Gerd Arntz tion that was conceived and organized by Al- of the blind. Madrid (who with Otto Neurath, created the modern fred H. Barr, Jr. (1902–1981) for the Museum of Another more recent and effective reflec- visual representation of quantitative infor- Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1936, and tion on sight, this time through images, is Lars mation we know as the “infograph”), George which Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art von Trier’s film Dogville, released in 2003. Maciunas and his Fluxus maps, Michel as Visual Art “reconstructs” in its main section Right from the start of the film, the director Seuphor, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, by transferring the diagram Barr created for surprises us with two devices, one unusual and El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, André Bret- the cover of the catalog [fig. 4, cat. 43] to the the other quite strange: the off-camera voice of Fig. 5. Film still of the is ruled by the blind (in this complete culture on, Miguel Covarrubias, and Gerhard Dirmos- rooms of the exhibition, and pages of this book the narrator, and an overhead shot of the imag- opening scene of the film of blindness its inhabitants don’t even know er, to name just a few. This overview takes (pp. 147–325). inary town of Dogville, appearing literally as a Dogville, Lars von Trier, what sight is and their language has no word us through avant-garde movements such as To that end, this essay looks at the rela- map of the town drawn on the ground [fig. 5], 2003 to define it), the world is strictly prepared for Futurism, Surrealism and Dada, all of which tionship between a certain type of object with the names of its streets and other types those, and only those, who do not see: orien- generated numerous self-representations in (work of art) and the words used to describe of signs. This scenic literalness of Dogville is a tation is achieved through the senses of smell which they gave themselves precedents [cats. them (not primarily those used in ekphra- clear and intentional attempt to draw the audi- and hearing, traffic routes are recognizable 17–19, 23, 332] or selected aspects of the past sis, but rather those used in texts to historify ence’s attention to scenography as set design, because they are bordered by stone arranged they wanted in their lineage, and discarded works of art), the image reproductions that by presenting an extreme case of naturalistic as handrails, and people follow each other those they did not [cat. 35]. The selection also accompany these words, and lastly, the phys- scenography, so common in film that we are “listening to the path.” The adventurer who includes an array of actual genealogical trees, ical spaces where they are exhibited (i.e. mu- unaware of it precisely because it fulfils its discovers this world repeats to himself that the paramount historical precedent for the seum spaces). However, because it is an essay, function, which is to disappear so that we pay “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is modern and contemporary visual represen- it is missing something essential, precisely attention to the plot, which is endowed with king” and takes for granted his own advantage tations of this history of art, and discussed in because the space of the text—this one and verisimilitude. of vision, but life systematically denies this, this catalog by Manuel Lima (pp. 60–81). all the others, where words and paragraphs The Country of the Blind, on the other hand, by always giving the advantage to the blind. All in all, this historical survey hinges on a are linked together on the white surface of is about a fantastic world, where something Convinced that to survive he must adapt, the hypothesis that makes this exhibition system- the page—does not allow for all these realities happens that strikes us initially as so anti-nat- hero of the story is about to succumb and allow atic, and not merely a selection of singularities: to be joined into one. The sustained breath- ural, where seeing does not constitute a com- himself to be blinded, when he again becomes that paying attention to the specific visuality ing of the pages of a book lives on words, not petitive advantage. But because the country lucid and ends up fleeing.

18 THE DIAGRAMMATIC EYE AND THE CURATORIAL IMAGINATION—MANUEL FONTÁN DEL JUNCO 19 Making the visual visible: the exhibition in photographic reports on the exhibition) of we deem this to be the paradigm of the classi- MoMA’s first home [figs. 6–8]. cal avant-garde and modernity, but back then Through their texts, history, philosophy and In the following pages, I would like to ana- the works of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, literature on the one hand, and film on the lyze Barr’s exhibition and its historical signifi- Pablo Picasso, Hans (or Jean) Arp and Theo other (by making explicit some of its devices) cance, in order to suggest what, in my opinion, van Doesburg were strictly contemporary to give us the necessary perspective to perceive it can teach the history of art, curatorship, mu- Barr and his public. In other words, Barr put realities, and images, as such, to inquire on its seography and museology about themselves, together a contemporary art exhibition, and function. Yet this conscious and intentional as sciences, arts and professions, from the the research that he had begun in 19277 had perception of images can also be achieved— clearly “diagrammatic sensibility” that Barr traits in common with journalism (time pres- and this is the issue at hand—directly through demonstrated in that exhibition. sures, pushing toward perhaps premature con- the primacy of the images, the original works clusions, not much historical perspective), as of art. This is accomplished through a cultur- In 1936, who were we, where did we come Barr himself explained years later.8 al practice that goes back no more than three from, where were we going? His fixation was, as he later described in centuries and which, despite the increasing one of his letters, “an exercise in recent ar- virtualization of reality, enjoys an enviously One interesting way to analyze Barr’s accom- chaeology.”9 The fact is, that while brilliantly analogic status: the exhibition (or its perma- plishment and the historical significance of overcoming the main difficulty of this type of nent version, the museum). Cubism and Abstract Art is to imagine him, “archaeology” (distinguishing between what What relates Alfred H. Barr, Jr.’s pioneering at the end of the 1920s, like the hero of Wells’s would be archaeological remains in the future curatorial work in Cubism and Abstract Art to short story: a young adventurer, endowed from those that were and would still be mere the hero of The Country of the Blind is, firstly, with sight (and vision) in the land of the blind “remains” of no significance), in reality he was that Barr’s enterprise was very similar to the to modern art. Despite the early 1913 Armory writing and completing (and we now see and hero’s intention in Wells’s story, which was to Show in New York, the migration to North understand) the first draft of the history of take personal advantage of vision, although America of European artists such as Marcel Fig. 9. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., modern art and the first lists of the members Barr did so more for the benefit of a public that, Duchamp, the activities of North American 1929–30. Photograph of its canon.10 metaphorically speaking but also in its majori- collectors and artists such as Joseph Steiglitz, by Eliot Elisofon. The Today, this would be as if a barely 35-year- ty, was blind to modern art. John Quinn, Marius de Zayas and Katherine Museum of Modern Art, old curator at the head of a museum of con- Barr made his public “see” modern art be- Dreier, and certain galleries even before the New York, Photographic temporary art that was no more than ten years cause he allowed the public to see the limits 1920s, North America in general, and New Archive old, not only conceived and organized an ex- of the world its vision could reach (i.e. the York specifically, were not yet the promised hibition that provided a genealogy of the main “established” art leading up to, shall we say, land of modern art they would soon become. artistic currents of 2019 tracing their roots to 1900) together with art from the years begin- In 1929, the young, 27-year-old Barr, born the 1970s, but in addition, that in 2050 this pro- ning at the point where their vision faltered in Detroit in 1902 [fig. 9], founded the world’s posal would still command a basic consensus or saw nothing (modern art, or shall we say, first museum of modern art, the Museum of on both the canonical nature of the selection of art as of 1907). But above all he got them to Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.4 Barely sev- works and the history narrated through them “see” this new art because, instead of writing en years later, in 1936, at MoMA he presented that had been established as the principal nar- a historical narrative, academic monograph, two ambitious and pioneering exhibitions, in rative on a global scale, which would of course or fantastic tale, he created an exhibition; that absolute terms and for the period: Fantastic mean that works by all of those artists would Fig. 10. Francesc is to say, he took a construct that had been Art, Dada, Surrealism and Cubism and Ab- Catalá-Roca, Alfred H. be in the collections of other major museums essentially conceived to be seen, an artifact stract Art. Of the latter, Barr wrote that it was Barr, Jr. in Barcelona across the world. thanks to which he triumphed, unlike Wells’s done “in a retrospective not in a controversial around 1967. Collection Barr conceived and put together this pio- hero, since, as we shall see, the Cubism and spirit,”5 which is true of the former as well, and Fundación Juan March neering exhibition practically all on his own. Abstract Art exhibition was a very important meant that both were essentially didactic in but not unique episode in a long successful their intentions: to make twentieth-century process by MoMA and its public to create the art known to an American public. canon of twentieth-century art. When this photograph was taken in Bar- There was something characteristic and celona in 1967 [fig. 10], Barr had just retired as specific about the Cubism and Abstract Art Director of MoMA. More than forty years had exhibition that made it different, and contin- passed since the creation of the museum, and ues to separate it from other, sometimes pio- more than thirty since the Cubism and Abstract neering exhibitions, which can be explained Art exhibition. In the meantime, New York had by comparison to the filmic device employed robbed Paris of its centrality in the history of at the beginning of Dogville. And it is while modern art, and MoMA was the paradigm— preparing the exhibition that Barr created not without criticism, but precisely because it something that is very similar to the marked had attempted, and succeeded in doing so—of scenography of that movie: the diagram on the canon of modern Western art. This canon the development of modern art that would ul- had been built, obviously, thanks to the logic timately be printed on the cover of the catalog. of collecting, which is the basic mechanism of This famous diagram, with its clearly the “art institution” (Peter Bürger), to the bene- scenographic character, functioned for the fit of the world’s first modern art museum. But Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition much this canon had also been built on the decisions like the markings in Dogville functioned for of individual personalities, groups, geographi- the film. The latter provided a place for (the cal provenance and works that formed the ba- moving images of) its characters, and Barr’s sis of the exhibitions that the museum held.6 diagram provided a narrative structure for Barr curated many exhibitions throughout his the large diversity and number of works in career, but none were so absolutely essential the exhibition. On the other hand, there are to the destiny of modern art as Cubism and Ab- also two important distinctions between the stract Art, and thinking about this exhibition film and the exhibition: first, that the map of with even the smallest historic perspective Figs. 6–8. Three views of the town of Dogville structures the space of only enhances its significance. the Cubism and Abstract the story of the same name, and “is seen;” and To begin with, just seven years after the Art exhibition at MoMA’s second, that while Barr organized the images museum was created and at only 34 years of original location, 1936. Photographs by of the works noted in the diagram that was age, Barr dared to create an exhibition that Beaumont Newhall. The published in the exhibition catalog, this order consisted of nothing less than providing geo- Museum of Modern Art, “was not seen” in the exhibition, which had to metric and non-geometric abstraction in art of New York, Photographic be adapted to an excessively domestic archi- the mid-1930s with an almost fifty-year gene- Archive tecture (as evidenced in numerous snapshots alogy, covering the years 1890 to 1935. Today,

20 THE DIAGRAMMATIC EYE AND THE CURATORIAL IMAGINATION—MANUEL FONTÁN DEL JUNCO 21 It was the first to attempt to show the geneal- ular stands out above all others: the diagram diagram to indicate the influence of one on this dialogue impossible or with one side that brought Barr to the land of the blind (New ogy of abstract art from late-nineteenth-cen- Barr created for the cover of the exhibition cat- others, those to which an active function is is dead). York of the 1930s), and to another, less visible tury Post-Impressionism to the geometric alog, which since then has become so famous, ascribed in a relationship of influence are in The main critique of the diagram—and the but just as populous as a city: a country where and non-geometric abstraction of the 1930s, imitated, copied [cat. 341] and parodied [fig. 11, reality the receptors of influence (located low- exhibition—came from historians and artists. seeing was likewise not really considered a through Picasso and Cubism—in his essay, Eu- cat. 386]. er down the diagram) and not the ones influ- The clearest and strongest of these was the ac- competitive advantage over knowledge ac- genio Carmona deals with Barr’s ambiguities encing (located further up the diagram). These cusation of “formalism” that came from Meyer quired through reading, and a country where toward Picasso and Cubism (pp. 328–41)—and Images and words: the diagrams could not have foreseen the arrival of their fol- Schapiro, a professor at Columbia University historic–scientific production was dominated all of the historical avant-garde movements. In lowers, and some had even disappeared by the and a friend of Barr’s, who later discussed his by the word, not the image. addition, Barr was ultimately responsible for Technically, Barr’s diagram is a flow chart,14 time the influence was exerted (a fact that, by arguments in detail in The Nature of Abstract The hypothesis I propose is that the land of building the MoMA collection, one that has es- where temporal relationships are represent- the way, puts into question the “dialogue” be- Art.16 the blind that Barr reached in 1929 (when he tablished the canon of modernity like no other ed in descending order, with a vertical axis tween non-contemporaneous works, a much But rather than look at these criticisms, I created the museum) and as of 1936 (with his museum has since. All of this makes Barr not a sectioned into five-year periods, from 1890 overused concept in museography, given that believe it is more important to lay down a hy- diagram) was one where the history of art was “missionary” of modern art but a kind of “cu- to 1936. Its constituent elements—arrows, a dialogue is essentially a two-way communi- pothesis about the diagram, which is that the not a visual history, but an essentially textu- ratorial father figure” for twentieth-century continuous and broken lines, semicircles, cation—an arrow with two points—making diagram was a kind of navigation chart that al one; where the visualization of works of art art,11 and to my mind, the real pioneer of con- rectangles drawn in red ink for four “issues” and their images was practically absent, or in temporary curatorship,12 because the dream that are external to the history of art (Japa- the tight logic of Wells’s short story, secondary of any curator or art historian is to give the Fig. 11. Daniel Feral, nese prints, Near-Eastern art, African sculp- to the word; a land where the history of art had present time a genealogy such as the one he Graffiti and Street Art, ture and Machine Esthetic), the names of the not yet grown the narratives that are proper to developed, which would truly be akin to un- 2011. Poster for the “isms,” movements, artistic styles, a few cities museums and exhibitions. This situation was derstanding one’s own time. Barr attempted Futurism 2.0 exhibition and dates—together construct the modern, ab- endemic within the borders of the history of (and was largely able, as we now know) to turn on the evolution of stract, conceptual and scientific version of the modern art until at least the 1930s. this objective into a reality, despite the added urban abstract art ancient genealogical tree. Two arguments, I believe, back up the hy- complication of a general resistance from the at Blackall Studios, Barr had in mind a “modernized” exam- pothesis of the diagram as a passport of a new London, September– avant-garde, who liked to position themselves ple of the tree, in the famous drawing by the country from where Barr had reached the old October 2012. 13 as radical novelties. Offset print on paper, Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias that was one: first, Barr’s early diagrammatic practice The Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition 45.72 x 30.48 cm. published in 1933 in Vanity Fair [cat. 38], but as a young university student, and two, his was, in short, very important for many rea- Courtesy of the artist / as we shall see, for close to a decade he had precocity as an organizer of exhibitions. A di- sons, but as we have said, one aspect in partic- EKG Labs been experimenting with diagrams, and chose agram Barr had drawn previously, on currents a more abstract and conceptual representation in German printmaking [cat. 25], in a 1925 letter over a more realistic and intuitive type, which to Paul Sachs, is a precursor to his 1935–36 dia- 17 was also more suited to the content (abstract Fig. 12. Alfred H. Barr, grams. Barr likely owed this initial inclination art and its evolution) he wished to visualize in Jr., preparatory drawing toward synthesis and representation to one of his diagram. A number of sketches of the 1936 of the diagram for his professors, Charles Rufus Morey [cat. 24]. diagram are in the MoMA archives in New York Cubism and Abstract To the second point, the first exhibition Barr [cat. 42], and their sequence reveals Barr’s de- Art, with lists of artists’ organized was at Wellesley College (Wellesley, sire to synthesize, with some that are quite de- names below the names Massachusetts), where he first gave classes, in tailed, with lists of artists’ names [fig. 12], while of movements and styles, 1926.18 others are more schematic. Not long after, Barr c. 1936. Alfred H. Barr, In my opinion, Barr’s “diagrammatic sensi- added a new type of diagram to his arsenal, Jr. Papers, 10.A.34. The bility” and early curatorial practice placed him Museum of Modern Art which was intended to make the direction of from the beginning of his professional activity Archives, New York the museum’s collection easier to understand: (and even before having to “invent” a museum) the so-called “torpedo diagrams,” which visu- Fig. 13. Front cover of the in a particular territory, free from the dialectic alize the slow but unrelenting movement that Cubism and Abstract Art between the “two histories of art,”19 of the uni- converts the “contemporary” into “modern” exhibition catalog with versity on the one hand, and the museum on [cat. 41] in any collection. manuscript corrections the other. Barr was, from the start of his career, and additions by Barr. Any diagram, including Barr’s, can be criti- the master of a playing field that was immune Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers, cized for the same reason it is praised: its abil- 3.C.4. The Museum of to the usual and perverse confrontation of ac- ity to synthesize leads to analytical omissions, Modern Art Archives, ademic historical research at universities and and the complex network of influences and re- New York curatorial research at museums. Of course, he lationships can always be refined. Barr, in fact, did revise his diagram. In the MoMA archives, there is a worn example of the cover of the catalog that bears his manuscript corrections and additions [fig. 13]. In it, one sees clearly that he added a city (Hanover), a connection between African sculpture and Constantin Brancusi, connections between Futurism, Machine Es- thetic and abstract Surrealism, and between Abstract Expressionism, abstract Dadaism and abstract Surrealism, strengthened the link from Machine Esthetic to modern architecture, and removed the arrows between Near-Eastern art and Abstract Expressionism, African sculpture and Fauvism, and most no- tably, between Machine Esthetic and Cubism. There is another aspect of the intuitive visuality of Barr’s diagram that can be criticized, and it has to do with the essential ambiguity of the arrow sign, as Michael Baxandall has pointed out.15 In an arrow, the direction clearly indicates an active function: when an arrow points from A to B, it indicates the active effect of A on B. But in Barr’s diagram, it is the other way around (and for this reason, in a good historic logic, Barr must have drawn it in re- verse): while the arrows descend through the

22 THE DIAGRAMMATIC EYE AND THE CURATORIAL IMAGINATION—MANUEL FONTÁN DEL JUNCO 23 was perfectly aware of the differences between chine, where the comprehension and interpre- diagram has a long history, from its earliest fig- has no useful substitute or textual surrogate, academic research and “research and publi- tation of works of art is largely not supported urative and naturalistic versions linked to one because it is basically an invisible diagram in cation at art museums,” as stated in the title by text, where reproductions of these works of the most powerful visual metaphors pres- space that brings together works, images and to a conference he gave many years later, in are compared and commented on in long and ent in all cultures (the tree), to its abstract and words to impart visual sense to the assembly of 1945,20 in which he picked apart the differenc- detailed scientific articles and monographs. conceptual modern representations, suitable the works. es between these two types of research in a way for visualizing general, scientific or humanist In a recent novel, aptly titled L’Exposition, that indicates just how aware he was of them in Curatorial practice as diagrammatic vision concepts or quantitative information. These Nathalie Léger writes: practice. And his list of the differences can be small and sometimes brilliant diagrammatic summarized into a first type of research relat- In summary, in his exhibition, Barr showed spaces, like those selected for this exhibition, I look up the word exposition in the Trésor de la ed to libraries and reproductions in the texts of for the first time that the question of whether also belong to a history of art that wants to be langue française dictionary: “That which is ex- books, and a second one that revolved around the history of art must be visual, can only be seen and not read, because they are also exem- hibited. The action of exhibiting a surface that the great advantage of the museum over the “answered” through exhibition, and especially plary machines made inextricably of images is sensitive to light. The action of displaying to university, which is that the museum holds the by the exhibition of works of art, because this and words. make something visible. A set of objects that very works of art, and not only images of them. place is visual in the literal sense: either the are placed on view. A place where objects that Now then: a diagram, unlike a text or an exhibition is the space in which the history of Exhibitions with diagrams in space are placed on view are presented. The action image, is precisely an inseparable mix of both. art is presented in such a proportion as to ex- of revealing in a speech. Secretly abandoning For this reason, Barr’s early use of the diagram actly transform the book into its opposite, or it For the curator, one of Barr’s lessons is that the a newborn in a place where it may be found. demonstrates, in my opinion, a kind of visu- is nothing more than what in English is called use of a diagram as a tool of historical heuris- Displaying a cadaver on a deathbed. The ally didactic intent that made him a builder “display” (the same term used for an exhibi- tics and methodological instrument is not the placement of something where it may suffer of bridges between the two. This kind of “ar- tion as for a storefront). same as of the infograph in journalism, that damage or harm. Showing something. State of chaeology of the present,” which became the In the space of the museum or exhibition, is to say, as a form of secondary assistance to something that is exhibited.” I promise myself exhibition of 1936, arose precisely out of his dominance is visual, dominance is through help understand complex facts. to return to see the conservator of the museum attempt to build a bridge between both means the works of art. There, above all, what must Barr’s lesson is that any exhibition, whether of C*** to summarize this to him, to exhibit my of constructing history—one textual, the other be seen is seen—art, in its incredible diversity— it knows it or not, or intends to or not, contains point of view on the entry of TLF and remind visual—a bridge that was built in the real time and what is to be read (labels, wall texts) is com- a diagram: a narrative composed of directional him of the project of any exhibition: to simply of the present, and the reason why he was both paratively small. The textual history of art is, in signs and a few texts. While he was not the first and plainly dispose the abandonment of some- praised and criticized by historians such as a manner of speaking, platonic: in a book, im- to attempt to visually represent the history of thing in secret. This is the only thing that can Meyer Schapiro, and artists and gallerists who ages, as copies of the real, serve the text, ideas art, he was a pioneer in relating a diagram to be said (displace, avoid, unfocus) in its disor- were (or were not) the protagonists of the his- are made comprehensible through arguments the exhibition of works it places in a structure, der, and even in its order.26 tory of the present, such as Wassily Kandinsky, illustrated through images. An exhibition, on not counting Aby Warburg’s experiments with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Auguste Herbin and Al- the other hand, is Aristotelian: the substantial visual sequences [cat. 32] (built with reproduc- What every exhibition is willing each time to exander Archipenko, among others.21 reality of works of art is placed on view barely tions and not the original works) and the tables abandon in secret in the space it uses is not, of More than simply creating this crucial dia- without texts, and it is through the works of in Malevich’s theory of art [cat. 28], which are course, the exhibited works, but its diagram: gram, Barr possessed an essentially diagram- art that one must achieve (or not) what is to be the two earliest precedents. the markings of the choreography that orga- matic eye and vision which strongly nurtured seen and understood, and not through images It may be that curatorial practice, under- nizes the works in the space of open and con- his curatorial imagination and balanced the of the works or discursive support. stood as museum research, has something of tinuous comparisons to the space they belong eminently intuitive and visual nature of this The crucial importance of the visual for the urgency of journalism (as characterized to and which places them in order [fig. 14]. It imagination with the knowledge that histo- the history of art tells us that the percep- in Barr’s talk mentioned earlier).24 But like can almost be said that the most important ry extracts from unpublished documentary tion and interpretation of twentieth-century good journalism, through curatorial practice aspect of an exhibition is the empty spaces sources. works of art must happen through the direct, and with each exhibition, its authors are writ- between works; or, at least, that these empty On these grounds, it is possible to argue that sensorial experience of seeing them and looking the first draft of history. If what is specific spaces, like the blank spaces between words, one of Barr’s legacies is the understanding that ing at them, and not only (or not to the same and gives meaning to an exhibition is that it paragraphs, pages and chapters in the pages academic research and curatorial research are extent) by reading about them or coming to makes art visible to all, that it makes visible of a book, are absolutely necessary for the text not opposing categories, but are also not iden- them through reproductions or words, which something that is essentially visual in pur- to be legible, and therefore make sense, and tical, and their difference is not one of degree should be a methodologically secondary mo- pose, then it should therefore also be possible without which the nodes (i.e. the works of art) or application, as if the latter were just the ment. And it is possible that melancholy, a to visualize what is written about the visible; they surround cannot acquire meaning or sig- technical application of the former within the feeling that is essential to the history of art as unless, of course, exhibitions have no sense. nificance, so that the passage through these confines of the museum. The relationship be- science,23 a science whose practitioners almost Because if the direct experience of the original empty spaces, is ultimately a means, not only tween the two is not the same as between sci- never have their object of study physically has no specific function and does not provide Fig. 14. “Space is the of looking, but also of knowledge and learning. ence and technology or between pure and ap- within view, can be cured only by “curing” the history with a perspective it cannot get equal- Connector of all Things,” Eighty years on, Barr’s Cubism and Ab- plied research in the positive sciences, because works of art of their distance within the true ly from commented-on images or illustrated from Richard Kostelanetz, stract Art exhibition is the most powerful an essential difference between the two may closeness provided by the physical space of the texts, exhibitions (which are nothing more Third Assembling: A modern art museum of the imagination, be characterized by applying the expression museum or exhibition where they are present- than ephemeral museums) and even muse- Collection of Otherwise because it very early made all of the possi- “openly researched”22 to the kind performed ed. For this reason, what is materialized in the ums themselves, are superfluous, at least be- Unpublishable ble imaginary museums into a reality. If we in the context of exhibitions. The substantive real space of the modern museum, in its exhi- yond their role as fetishist custodians of the Manuscripts. New choose any example from among these imag- difference of any investigation that is done for bitions, is none other than the history of art as original works of art. York: Assembling Press, inary museums—André Malraux’s, for exam- 1972: 12. Archivo the purposes of conceiving an exhibition (and a history that is visual, not textual. It follows that any exhibition is invariably a ple—the difference is clear: the reproductions Lafuente its corresponding publications) is that it must With Barr and his diagrammatic sensibil- show of material objects, but also the museum of the Frenchman’s imaginary museum of be done from the start within the full and ab- ity, the visual historian was born, and so too of the curator’s imagination. What the latter world sculpture rose from the floor (where solute awareness of the fundamental fact that was born the curator–conservator of art of exhibits, however, is not material. It is almost Malraux had placed them, to get from them its result—the peculiar choreography of works the present, of the modern art of every epoch. invisible, like a kind of nerve system, which a panoramic vision that would soon be lost of art and documents of which it is made—will Furthermore, with his diagram, Barr led us to thus can be perceived only when it is made ex- in the pages of his book [fig. 16, cat. 322]) to be publicly and democratically arranged and discover that the physical space of the exhibi- plicit. Unless this is done, as in Dogville or our end up, à la Mallarmé, printed in a book. By exposed in the three dimensions of a physical tion is not the only one that is proper to that materialized diagram, the museum of the cura- contrast, the real works selected by Barr were space in order to be visualized, not read. history of art that is seen more than read; that tor’s imagination is a network of connections, exhibited on the walls of MoMA (which would Curatorial research is one that takes seri- there is also the space of diagrams, practically invisible but operational and intuitively com- then turn them into part of its collection [fig. ously Otto Pächt’s formulation quoted at the unknown and less visible because its materi- prehensible, between what is visible: the works 17]), because from the start they had been beginning of this essay, and its result, the ex- ality is not architectonic, and perhaps because exhibited. It is a secret network of branches, imagined, thought, chosen and collected to hibition itself: a visual–historical machine, an it is overshadowed by the weight of text, as it arrows, continuous and broken lines, and oth- be exhibited in a physical space of a muse- interpretive installation of works of art (and is normally found in books, magazines and er directional signs, effectively connecting Fig. 15. Peter Bowler, um or exhibition, yes, and because a curator to a much lesser extent, texts and documents) artforms more linked to portability and mul- the works to each other and establishing the “Belomancy,” from The may not be more than an art historian who is which, by the same token, needs to be visually tiplication, such as drawings, engravings or relationships that make any exhibition into Superior Person’s Book climbing the walls, or a practitioner of what convincing because it is presented for contem- printed copies; a space that historically has something more than a display: a visually ef- of Words. London: Peter Bowler has called “belomancy” (“pre- plation. The discursive support of other types been as discreet as it is friendly to the visual fective story, an interpretive and interpretable Bloomsbury, 2002: 16. dicting the future by the use of arrows”) [fig. of investigation is not part, to the same degree nature of works of art and the genealogical panoramic vision, an artifact whose “rhetoric Library Fundación Juan 15],27 a marauder of empty spaces who carries as works of art, of the visual arsenal of this ma- history of each one. This “other space” of the of synopsis” (in the words of Uwe Fleckner25) March, Madrid around a bow and an invisible quiver of arrows

24 THE DIAGRAMMATIC EYE AND THE CURATORIAL IMAGINATION—MANUEL FONTÁN DEL JUNCO 25 which, when shot with accuracy, will bring vi- ic research, with one hinging on the works propaganda and entertainment culture. If, on works of art will return sight to us and also sual effectiveness to the space in which the of art and contexts as realities that can be vi- the other hand, following Alfred H. Barr, Jr.’s mean enjoyment and knowledge. In a world works of art are exhibited. sualized, and the other hinging on texts and example, curatorial practice is taken seriously such as ours, in which images are so often me- If, as Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt has persua- the support of reproductions as illustrations, by academia (and vice versa), those handrails dial and inflationary, and are consumed with sively argued, the so-called diagrammatic turn diagrammatics will remain an eccentricity, that enabled the blind to transit along those little awareness or reflection and yet are so in- has not yet fully bloomed or left the kind of academic history will continue to be the ter- roads in Wells’s imaginary world will be- fluential in our behavior and perception, the imprint on the history of art that the linguistic rain of specialized pundits, and exhibitions come, in exhibitions, the invisible diagrams continued existence of free spaces for senso- turn and the iconic turn have had on human will turn into rather luxurious, and increas- that sustain them, and transiting through rial experience in exhibitions and museums30 sciences,28 this may not be due to the reluc- ingly unsustainable exercises in institutional the empty spaces of the exhibition between may be more important than we realize. tance our culture and human sciences, founded on the alphabet, on writing and on reading, may have toward the pictogram, icon or sign, NOTES but more because the diagram is still today a young science that is still dominated by aca- 1. See Guilbaut 1983 (2007 Spanish translation galleries; they are now largely in the MoMA collection 16. Schapiro 1937: 77–98. This is not the place to demic history and art theory, rather than being consulted). or belong to some of the most important museums of the discuss Schapiro’s position, which I believe Barr refers one of the skills practiced in curatorship. The world, which is an eloquent testimony to Barr’s success to, with deft irony, in the letter to Jerome Klein (see 2. I exclude here “artist’s books” and photobooks, as former uses diagrams as a secondary resource in constructing the modern canon. n. 9). Schapiro’s accusation of “formalism” would well as certain precursors to the thesis developed in and as support in texts to clarify complex as- have to be contrasted with Barr’s generalized use of these pages, such as Marshall McLuhan’s Counterblast 11. This comes from Alice Goldfarb Marquis, who pects of history and the theory of images; the documentary material in the exhibition (frequently (1954), The Mechanical Bride (1967), and The constructed Barr’s biography (see n. 4) around the latter constructs exhibitions—more or less loaded with political and social connotations) and with Medium is the Massage by McLuhan and Quentin metaphor of the missionary who spreads the good the fact that the area of the diagram from which the successful blends of images and text—with Fiore (1967), in which the visuality achieved through news of modern art, and the fact that Barr’s father was largest number of influences “emanate” (up to nine, diagrams, but perhaps has not thought suffi- typography, mise en page and play between text and a Presbyterian minister. 29 even more than for Cubism) was in reality as external ciently about this fact. image convert them into what I would call “exhibition 12. At this writing, in New York (Swiss Institute) and to a formalist history of art as that contained in the Perhaps what the diagrammatic turn in art books”. “Machine Esthetic” red rectangle. history needs to complete the revolution on its at the Getty Museum in San Francisco, there is an 3. Elkins 2002: 131, talking about the Janson books exhibition on Harald Szeemann of the same title as one axis is a push from a kind of “curatorial turn”, in 17. Gordon Kantor 2002: 22, fig. 4. published in 1959 and a history of art in images by of his first shows, in 1974, devoted to his grandfather which diagramming, or the visual representa- Frank, Schaefer and Winter, 1913–c. 1925. Étienne Szeemann, “Grossvater, ein Pionier wie wir” 18. Ibid.: 86ff and 117ff. tion of relationships, becomes viewed among (Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us). With his pioneering 4. For an overview of those years, see Gordon Kantor 19. Haxthausen 2002. curators and academics as the principal cura- exhibition Live in your Head. When Attitudes Become 2002; Marquis’s 1989 biography of Alfred H. Barr, torial tool, and not just an ancillary resource Form at the Bern Kunsthalle in 1969, Szeeman 20. See n. 8. Jr. remains a good introduction to his life, and can of academic art history. Unless this happens, became the father of independent curating. And this be complemented by the “Oral History Interview with is true, but to attribute the origins of contemporary art 21. See the unpublished letters of Kandinsky, Herbin, the world of academic research may continue Margaret Scolari Barr concerning Alfred H. Barr,” curating solely to the artistic spirit and critique of the Kahnweiler, Rosenberg and László Moholy-Nagy to to be the land of the blind to curators, and the February 22–May 13, 1974 (Archives of American art museum of the 1970s in my view is to place it too Barr in the MoMA Archives, AHB [Alfred H. Barr, Jr.] world of museum institutions will be the land Art, Smithsonian Institution, AAA_collcode_barr74); for late. It makes more sense to date its beginnings to the Papers. of the unlettered to scholars. In his Critique of the specific episode of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.’s dismissal by works of figures such as Alexander Dörner, Willem Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant wrote that true Stephen C. Clark in 1943, see Weber 2007. Another 22. The expression is Erwin Panofsky’s, who used it Sandberg and, of course, Barr, who is the authentic knowledge can only be achieved when the in- highly recommended reading is Staniszewski 1998. to highlight the distinctive nature of the Institute for pioneer “grandfather” of modern and contemporary Advanced Study in Princeton; Panofsky 1955. tuitions of the imagination, constructed from 5. Barr 1936: 9. art curatorship. An understanding of this genealogy the senses, are subsumed to the concepts of would, I believe, have helped avoid some of the defects 23. Holly 2013. 6. Barr is an eminent example of how collectors and understanding, which are conceived by rea- found frequently in contemporary “exhibitionism” and curators are twin spirits because of one activity they 24. See n. 8. son. When one of these two components is “curationism” (Balzer 2014). missing, there are only stark ideas or sensitive have in common: the selection of works of art, the 25. See Uwe Fleckner’s essay in this catalog, curatorial action par excellence. 13. “The effects of a work—wrote Valéry—are never a impressions, but no true understanding of the pp. 132–45. simple consequence of the conditions of their genesis. 7. In that year, Barr began a trip with Jere Abbott real. Kant coined the phrase “Intuitions with- On the contrary, one could say that a work has as 26. Léger 2019: 96. The italics are mine. through Europe, including Russia, which would be out concept are blind, thoughts without con- a secret objective to make one imagine its genesis crucial to the exhibition. In fact, in a letter to Jerome 27. “Belomancy, n.: [… + The future of the then- tent are void.” Concepts abound in academic as something as far away from truth as possible”; Klein (see n. 9), Barr wrote: “(…) I was very much reigning British royalty was accurately foretold in this art history, while intuitions are plentiful in see Valéry 2015: 19. Just about every modern art interested in cubism and abstract art about 10 years fashion at the Battle of Hastings]” in Bowler 1979: 16. the history of art developed in museum insti- movement has seen itself as a radical novelty, and ago, but my interest in it has declined steadily since therefore attempted to “slay the father” and present 28. See Schmidt-Burkhardt 2005b and 2017. tutions; and when they do not join in exhibi- 1927.” itself alone, without precedents. The historian’s search tions, the lapsus pictoriae they produce is just 29. Curatorial studies is still a young science, but does 8. Barr, Alfred H, Jr., “Research and Publication in for precedents can therefore sometimes take on a as dramatic as a long and continuous lapsus have a number of important publications, catalogues Art Museums”, in the MoMA Archives, Barr Papers dramatic edge similar to the one in this poem by César linguae in a text. raisonnés devoted to the complete works of certain subseries IV, IV.B.43. See also Barr 1986 (1989): Vallejo: “[…] I had believed until now that everything If we do not accept that a difference cur- curators, and studies of museum and exhibition spaces 231ff. in the universe was, inevitably, of parents and children. and exhibition history in journals such as the Journal rently exists between curatorial and academ- But here I find that my pain of today is neither father of Curatorial Studies and The Exhibitionist. A section 9. Alfred H. Barr, Jr. to Jerome Klein, 1932, The nor son. It lacks a back for nightfall, and too much MoMA Archives, AHB [Alfred H. Barr, Jr.] Papers, devoted to publications and studies of curatorial chest for daybreak, if it were placed in a dark room, it Correspondence A–K, I.A.5; mf 2164:605. practice can be seen online in the library and research would not give light and in a light-filled room, would support center of the Fundación Juan March, www. 10. Beyond looking at the exclusion or inclusion of not give shadow. Today I suffer, whatever happens. march.es. artists—the absence of women such as Gunta Stolzl, Today I suffer alone”, in “Hoy voy a hablar de la Sonia Delaunay and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and of non- esperanza”, Vallejo 2003: 44. 30. The same may be said of many traditional Western artists is shocking—it is also enlightening bookstores, where the labyrinths of books placed in 14. There are very good introductions to visual to compare who owned the works when they were apparent disorder on large tables have in fact been thinking and the visual representation of quantitative exhibited in 1936 versus who owns them now: most of carefully organized by the critical eye of the bookseller Fig. 16. Maurice Jarnoux, information; see, among others, Tufte 2006 and them, as per the list Barr published in the catalog (Barr who secretly guides us through them, while we believe André Malraux at his Holmes 1998. home in Boulogne- 1936: 6–7, 203–33.) were still in the possession of the we are discovering the path through our own erratic sur-Seine, near Paris, artists themselves, or belonged to private collections or 15. Quoted in Tufte 2006. wandering. working on his book Le musée imaginaire, 1953. Paris Match Archive, Paris

Fig. 17. Alfred H. Barr, Jr. surrounded by works from the MoMA collection. Photograph by David E. Sherman, 1953. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

26 THE DIAGRAMMATIC EYE AND THE CURATORIAL IMAGINATION—MANUEL FONTÁN DEL JUNCO 27