#52exhibitions

[moma]

Homage to New York: A Self-Constructing and Self-Destroying Work of Art Conceived and Built by Jean Tinguely

In 1960, MoMA’s Press Office sent a press release announcing, matter-of-factly, “A machine, 23 feet long and 27 feet high, conceived and built by the Swiss-born artist Jean Tinguely so that it destroys itself when set in motion, will be shown in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art Thursday evening, March 17.” Tinguely had been asked to create one of his signature kinetic artworks, and in collaboration with other artists such as Billy Klüver and Robert Rauschenberg he assembled a great self-destructing machine monument to the end of the mechanical age. Once set off, the machine performed for 27 minutes for a crowd of invited guests, after which they sorted through the remnants—including bicycle wheels, motors, a bathtub, and a piano—for souvenirs. Curator Peter Selz remembered Tinguely’s astonishment as he collected material for his sculpture: “He had never seen anything like the junkyards and junk heaps of New Jersey.”                                                                               

See images of the sculpture in action, read the out-of-print brochure, and more at mo.ma/52exhibitions. 36 of #52exhibitions #MoMAhistory #tbt

[moma]

Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art (1940)

Curated by three of Mexico’s leading art historians along with the painter Miguel Covarrubias, "Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art" had originally been intended for a French museum, but was rerouted to New York due to the risk posed by shipping precious artworks by sea during World War II. This unparalleled exhibition featured some 5,000 examples of ancient, colonial, folk, and modern Mexican art. It filled the entire Museum and even extended into the courtyard, where MoMA staged an open-air Mexican market with stalls selling ceramics, leather goods, and other crafts, flanked by a series of giant pre-colonial statues. Perhaps the central attraction of this lush presentation was the presence of muralist José Clemente Orozco, who worked over a period of 10 days on the 9 x 18" fresco Dive Bomber and Tank as crowds watched. The exhibition has a lasting legacy at MoMA: among its holdings of Mexican modernism are works by 54 of the artists represented.

See out-of-print catalogues, music brochures, images of the installation, and more at mo.ma/2q2zDPp. 34 of #52exhibitions #MoMAhistory #tbt

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[José Clemente Orozco with his fresco "Dive Bomber and Tank," commissioned by MoMA during the exhibition "Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art," May 15–September 30, 1940. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.]

[moma]

The Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934.

One of the founders of The Museum of Modern Art, Lillie Bliss played an extraordinarily large role in shaping the institution. In her will, she gifted the Museum with a significant share of her remarkable collection—some 150 works of art—thereby establishing the founding collection and a substantial core on which to build. However, Bliss’s will stipulated that in order for the Museum to receive the artworks, it had to achieve financial stability within three years—no small feat in the midst of the Great Depression. The challenge was met, and the entire Bliss bequest, including works by Cézanne, Modigliani, and Picasso, went on display in 1934, three years after her passing. One clause in Bliss’s will proved particularly useful in the years to come: the Museum was free to sell her works individually in order to build the collection. Some of the signature works in MoMA’s collection, including Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, were acquired in this manner.

See images of the installation and more at mo.ma/2r1xXTp. 35 of #52exhibitions.

[moma]

The Responsive Eye (1965)

#tbt to The Responsive Eye, MoMA’s 1965 investigation of Op art, which became an instant sensation. The exhibition introduced American audiences to vanguard European artists such as Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely and brought together some 125 examples of what was called “Optical” or “Retinal” art—art with an unusual sense of dynamism that, even while remaining completely static, seemed to move along with the viewer. In a three-part CBS report on the exhibition, the celebrated journalist Mike Wallace noted that the works on display broke the rule of that art should “sit still and behave itself.” This sense of disruption, which curator William Seitz claimed could elicit “delight, anxiety, and even vertigo,” created immense public excitement, and The Responsive Eye quickly became MoMA’s most popular exhibition to date. It also launched the mid-1960s design craze for Op, which spilled over into fashion magazines and interior décor.

Check out the out-of-print catalogue, images of the exhibition, and more at http://mo.ma/2pGrFLl. 32 of #52exhibitions #MoMAhistory

[moma]

Photography 1839–1937

#tbt to MoMA’s first photography show, Photography 1839–1937, organized three years prior to the establishment of the Department of Photography. This ambitious, sweeping exhibition was the most comprehensive ever to be held in the US. More than 800 photographs, from the earliest Daguerrotypes to contemporary works by Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Brassaï and others, filled four floors of the Museum. In the accompanying catalogue, curator Beaumont Newhall, who would go on to become the first director of MoMA’s Department of Photography, revealed the exhibition’s guiding question: “Even at the risk of falling into philosophical quagmires,” he wrote, “the question, ‘Is photography art?’ cannot be ignored.” Both the exhibition and Newhall’s catalogue essay explored this issue by examining the history of photography both as an art and as a means of communication, taking into account the entire purview of the medium.

Read the out-of-print catalogue, see installation views, and more at mo.ma/2omZxtu. 31 of #52exhibitions

[moma]

Fluxus: Selections from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection

#tbt to MoMA’s first exhibition on Fluxus, comprised of works from Gilbert and Lila Silverman’s renowned collection of works from this radical artistic experiment, which they donated to MoMA 20 years later. Fluxus was a 1960s movement that brought together an international group of artists, designers, composers, and writers—including Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, and George Maciunas, among many others—who opposed the concept of the art object as a nonfunctional commodity. In pursuit of expanded possibilities for art, Fluxus artists tended toward nontraditional and ephemeral forms such as performance, mail art, and inexpensive publications. The works on display at the Museum included instruction drawings, correspondence, photographs, and other ephemera from this elusive movement. Curated by Clive Phillpot, the director of the MoMA Library, the exhibition was installed in the Library, on shelves and in card catalogues through which visitors were invited to rummage, underscoring the inquisitive, experimental essence of the movement.

Read the out-of-print catalogue, see installation views, and more at mo.ma/2nH87Ca. 30 of #52exhibitions #MoMAhistory

[moma]

Sophie Taeuber-Arp

#tbt to 1981, when MoMA held the first retrospective of the Swiss avant-garde artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Consisting of more than 40 works from multiple periods of the artist’s mature work, the exhibition aimed, according to curator Carolyn Lanchner, “to present a small, selective retrospective that will demonstrate the quality, originality, and importance of her work.” This motivation stemmed from a widespread misperception of Taeuber-Arp as a minor modernist, despite her foundational role in the Zürich Dada movement and accomplishments as a painter, sculptor, and textile designer. Taeuber-Arp, also a leading practitioner of geometric abstraction, had for many years best been known to a small, admiring fan base; beyond this, she was largely overshadowed by the men in her artistic circles. MoMA's retrospective, which traveled to several venues across the US and Canada, was a major milestone in recuperating Taeuber-Arp as one of the foremost modernists of the early 20th century. See images of the 1981 installation, read the out-of-print catalogue, and more at http://mo.ma/2nvzfb4. 

[moma]

Machine Art

#tbt to 1934: Visitors to Machine Art were startled to find three floors of utilitarian, machine-made objects, such as springs, pots and pans, and scientific instruments, displayed on pedestals, elevating them to the level of sculpture. This reverential display revealed the considerable aesthetic allure of these industrial objects, which the Museum capitalized on with a beauty contest judged by celebrities such as Amelia Earhart and the philosopher John Dewey. Dewey had argued that a person’s experience of things is shaped by the context in which they are viewed, a concept that curator Philip Johnson employed in his groundbreaking design for the exhibition. Johnson took unusual steps to show the objects to their greatest effect: he screened the walls and ceilings of the Museum’s second location in a 19th-century brownstone in order to hide its decorative molding, creating a sleek, clean atmosphere that set a new standard for the display of design objects.

Read the out-of-print catalogue and see images of this pioneering exhibition at mo.ma/52exhibitions. 27 of #52exhibitions #MoMAhistory