MoMA Highlights MoMA Highlights MoMA This revised and redesigned edition of MoMA Highlights: 350 Works from The Museum of Modern Art presents a new selection from the Museum’s unparalleled collection of modern and contemporary art. Each work receives a vibrant image and an informative text, and 115 works make their first appearance in Highlights, many of them recent acquisitions reflecting the Museum’s commitment to the art of our time. 350 Works from The Museum of Modern Art New York MoMA Highlights 350 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2 3 Introduction Generous support for this publication is Produced by the Department of Publications What is The Museum of Modern Art? 53rd Street, from a single curatorial The Museum of Modern Art, New York provided by the Research and Scholarly At first glance, this seems like a rela- department to seven (including the Publications Program of The Museum of Edited by Harriet Schoenholz Bee, Cassandra Heliczer, tively straightforward question. But the most recently established one, Media Modern Art, which was initiated with the sup- and Sarah McFadden Designed by Katy Homans answer is neither simple nor straight- and Performance Art, founded in port of a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Production by Matthew Pimm forward, and any attempt to answer it 2006), and from a program without a Foundation. Publication is made possible Color separations by Evergreen Colour Separation permanent collection to a collection of by an endowment fund established by The (International) Co., Ltd., Hong Kong almost immediately reveals a complex Printed in China by OGI/1010 Printing International Ltd. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Edward institution that, from its inception, has over 100,000 objects, MoMA has regu- John Noble Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Perry R. This book is typeset in Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk and engendered a variety of meanings. larly grown, changed, and rethought Bass, and the National Endowment for Franklin Gothic. The paper is 95gsm Hi-Q Matt Art. For some, MoMA is a cherished place, itself. In doing so it has undergone the Humanities’ Challenge Grant Program. Third revised edition 2013 a sanctuary in the heart of midtown seven major architectural expansions © 1999, 2004, 2013 The Museum of Modern Art, New York Manhattan. For others, it is an idea and renovations since the completion Library of Congress Control Number: 2012954960 represented by its collection and ampli- of its first building in 1939, with its ISBN: 978-0-87070-846-6 fied by its exhibition program. For still most recent expansion, designed by Published by The Museum of Modern Art others, it is a laboratory of learning, a the celebrated Japanese architect 11 West 53 Street place where the most challenging and Yoshio Taniguchi, finished in late 2004. New York, NY 10019-5497 www.moma.org difficult art of our time can be mea- This virtually continuous process of sured against the achievements of the physical growth reflects the institu- Distributed in the United States and Canada by ARTBOOK | D.A.P., New York immediate past. tion’s ongoing efforts to honor its own 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10013 MoMA is, of course, all of this changing programmatic and intellectual www.artbook.com and more. Yet, in 1929, its founders needs by constantly adjusting, and fre- Distributed outside the United States and Canada by dreamed, and its friends, trustees, quently rethinking, the topography of Thames & Hudson Ltd 181A High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX and staff have dreamed since, that its its space. Each evolution has opened www.thamesandhudson.com multiple meanings and potential would up the possibility for the institution’s Cover: Andy Warhol. Campbell’s Soup Cans (detail). 1962. ultimately be resolved into some final, next iteration, creating a kind of perma- See p. 234. Back cover: The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture fully formed equilibrium. nent self-renewing debate within MoMA Garden, looking west from the MoMA lobby, with Hector Guimard’s Entrance Gate to Paris Subway (Métropolitain) In 1939, for instance, in the about both its future and its relation- Station, c. 1900. See p. 27. Title spread (p. 2): Rachel catalogue for the Museum’s tenth ship to the past. With each change have Whiteread. Water Tower. 1998. See p. 334. P. 7: Vincent van Gogh. The Starry Night (detail). 1889. See p. 25. P. 9: anniversary exhibition, the Museum’s come new expectations and challenges, Maya Deren. Meshes of the Afternoon. 1943. See p. 151. president, A. Conger Goodyear, proudly and this is especially true today. Printed in China proclaimed that the institution had The Museum of Modern Art is pred- finally reached maturity. As we now icated on a relatively simple proposi- realize, despite the achievements of tion, that the art of our time—modern the Museum’s initial years, he could art—is as vital as the art of the past. A not have anticipated the challenges to corollary of this proposition is that the come. The Museum was still at the aesthetic and intellectual interests that beginning of an adventure that contin- shape modern art can be seen in medi- ues to unfold more than half a century ums as different as painting and sculp- later. At the age of ten the Museum ture, film, photography, media and was (and at eight times ten moves performance, architecture and design, onward as) an exploratory enterprise prints and illustrated books, and draw- whose parameters and possibilities ings—the Museum’s current curatorial remain open. departments. From the outset, MoMA From temporary quarters at 730 has been a laboratory for the study of Fifth Avenue to its current building occu- the ways in which modernity has mani- pying most of a city block at 11 West fested itself in the visual arts. 5 There has been, of course, and still many people involved with the there will continue to be, a great deal Museum who knew them, and have of debate over what is actually meant preserved and burnished their memo- by the term “modern” in relation to ries, but it is also because they are, or art. Does it connote a moment in were, such fascinating figures, whose time? An idea? A particular set of val- vision and drive gave birth to an institu- ues? Whatever definition is favored, it tion that was the first, and rapidly seems clear that any discussion of the became the foremost, museum of its concept must take into account the kind in the world. role MoMA has played in attempting to Given the resonance of this found- define, by its focus and the intellectual ing legacy, the challenge for MoMA arguments of its staff, a canon of today is to build upon this past without modern and contemporary art. These being delimited or constrained by it. efforts at definition have often been This is by no means a simple task. To controversial, as the Museum has keep the Museum open to new ideas sought to navigate between the inter- and possibilities also means reevaluat- ests of the avant-garde, which it seeks ing and changing its perception of its to promote, and the general public, past. As the Museum has become which it seeks to serve. increasingly established and respected, The story of how MoMA came to be its sense of responsibility to its own so intimately associated with the his- prior achievements has grown. In many tory of modern art forms a rich narra- ways, it has become an agent impli- tive that, over time, has acquired the cated in the growth of the very tradition potency of a founding myth. Like all it seeks to explore and explicate: such myths, it is part fiction and part through its pioneering exhibitions, truth, built upon the reality of the often based upon its permanent collec- Museum’s unparalleled collection. tion; its International Program, which Various accounts—from Russell has promoted modern art by circulating Lynes’s 1937 book Good Old Modern exhibitions around the world; and its to the Museum’s own volume of 1984, acquisitions, publications, and public The Museum of Modern Art, New York: programs. Thus it must constantly seek The History and the Collection—give an appropriate critical distance, one MoMA’s story at length, and this is not that allows it to observe as well as to the place to repeat or enlarge upon it. be observed. While this distance may What is worth considering, however, is be impossible to achieve fully, the that over eighty years after the Museum effort to do so has resulted in a com- first opened its doors, many of those mitment to an intense internal debate, associated with its beginnings—Abby and an openness to sharing ideas with Aldrich Rockefeller, a founding trustee; the public in a quest to promote an Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director; ever deeper engagement with modern Philip Johnson, who established the art for the largest possible audience. architecture and design department; Any understanding of MoMA must and Dorothy C. Miller, one of the begin with the recognition that the very Museum’s first curators, to name only idea of a museum of modern art implies a few—remain vivid figures whose an institution that is forever willing to ideas and personalities continue to court risks and controversy. The chal- reverberate through the institution. lenge for the Museum is to periodically This is true, in part, because there are reinvent itself, to map new space, 6 7 metaphorically as well as practically; to ments were initially relatively fluid, do this it must be its own severest during the late 1960s and 1970s they critic.