Edition 5-1

In hopes of avoiding the weekend crowd, I attended the Museum of Modern Art first thing on the snowy morning of Sunday, February 9th. Thankfully, after stomping through slushy sidewalks with cold hands and wind burnt cheeks, the Museum was relatively empty and my arrival was a smooth one. After grabbing my admission ticket, I dismissed the wait for the elevators and decidedly ascended to the fourth floor on the escalator. The first room of the 1950s-1970s Permanent Collection had an emergency exit door on the far wall and four two-dimensional artworks by mid-century Brazilian artists—it was an unexpected beginning. From “Body on the Line” and “Photography and Language” to “Everyday Encounters” and “New World Stage”, I moved through different gallery spaces in nonchronological order and varying in curatorial thematic. Thus, I was quickly disoriented by the MoMa’s lack of architectural script.[1] Even more confusing was the absence of interpretive wall text underneath a work’s tombstone information and donor acknowledgments, which in other museum visits usually prompts critical engagement beyond immediate aesthetic intrigue. Instead, each room was framed by a panel that briefly orients viewers on what the corresponding curatorial lens is and wall labels feature a number to an audio recording on the Bloomberg Connects app. While the app may not satisfy everyone’s preference, it “activates” the permanent collection in a new way. At one’s fingertips are artists narrating their creative process, a museum professional summarizing a piece’s historical relevance, or a psychotherapist guiding you through a meditation. And most innovative is the access to learn about works outside of the collection’s standouts.

Furthermore, I must admit that I have a difficult time approaching contemporary art. I had a silly encounter in gallery 410’s display of “Womens Work”, where next to a vinyl record by Pauline Oliveros titled Accordion & Voice hung a pair of headphones. As I nervously picked them up to listen, I was relieved when there was no security guard to escort me out of the building for touching the art. I am most fond of 18th and 19th century art—the more “traditional” genres of two-dimensional art like still-life and portraiture—partially because I can confidently differentiate what is and what is not art, but mostly because it resonates with the medium and style of my own artistic practice. This is precisely why I really connected with works that were put in conversation with artists from preceding time periods. For example, the monumental size of James Rosenquist’s F-111 is attributed to mural-sized paintings like Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. A similar approach is introduced in Beatriz González’s Rionegro, Santander, where the artist repositions the quintessential female bather to explore notions of “taste”. Gallery 412, where the latter painting was displayed, followed the theme of “Domestic Disruption”; it was my favorite arrangement of the day. The grouping that caught my eye was comprised of works by Evelyne Axell, Henry Darger, and Yayoi Kusama, alongside the aforementioned Beatriz González. These works are strikingly dissimilar visually, but accord in the way they subvert quotidian imagery to examine consumerism in a postwar economy.

After seeing Robert Rauschenberg’s taxidermied eagle and Mark Rothko’s color fields (in that order), I finally found the exhibition’s introductory wall placard. Only then did I realize I had walked through the exhibition from end to beginning. It read that the artworks on the fourth floor are organized in loosely chronological order and that the multifaceted arrangements in each room are part of a monthly reinstallation program. Thus, starting at the very end did not take away from my experience, as historical linearity was not a primary concern. The exhibit prioritized versatility in visual contemplation, challenging viewers’ ability to wear different lenses as they approach what is grouped together on display and why. Viewers can return to the MoMa next month to find other refreshing interpretations of the permanent collection. Overall, in alignment with our course discussions about how contemporary museums are responding to critiques about their cultural authority, the MoMa’s fourth floor dynamic looks like Evelyne Axell’s Axell-ération in the way it now presses on a diversity of colorful gas pedals to propel its collection to new speeds.

As I descended to the second floor to the Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern exhibition, I was greeted by a small Paul Cézanne Study of bathers. A stark contrast to the previous exhibition spaces, this show featured an earlier oeuvre of artists I am much more familiar with, namely, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Odilon Redon, and Amedeo Modigliani. In combination with archival documents, this collection of works is displayed to spotlight the lasting impact of founder Lillie Plummer Bliss after she bequeathed a large part of her collection to the Museum in 1931, officially establishing the MoMa as a collecting institution. While the crowd of viewers surrounding it may agree that Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night was the star of the show, I was most drawn to Woman in White by Pablo Picasso. Woman in White is a testament to a terminated deaccessioning arrangement between the MoMa and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1952, when the work returned to the former Museum as “essential for the understanding and enjoyment of its entire collection”.[2] The same can be said of the permanent collection galleries—without them, the display of succeeding artists and movements would only be understood in isolation of their context. Accordingly, I do feel that the Museum is successfully fomenting Bliss’s founding wish of championing the artistic vanguard while simultaneously taking momentous steps towards revering the historical evolution of its permanent collection and reenergizing its cultural value.