THE CONFLICTS AND COMPLEXITIES OF MODERN ART'S MIDDLE YEARS EXAMINED AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Some Twenty Exhibitions Focus on the Years 1920 to 1960
CYCLE OF EXHIBITIONS
Making Choices
LOCATION AND DATES
The exhibitions of Making Choices will be installed throughout the Museum, according to the following schedule:
March 16 – July 26, 2000: Second Floor
April 6 – September 5, 2000: Fourth Floor
April 30 – September 12, 2000: Third Floor
CONTENT Making Choices, the second cycle of MoMA2000 exhibitions, will focus on the years between 1920 and 1960, a period of social and political turmoil and spirited artistic debate. As the original visions of modern art matured, they simultaneously provoked dissenting reactions and spawned parallel experiments in a variety of mediums. Faced with competing opportunities and imperatives, artists were obliged to make choices. To emphasize the contentions and vital complexities of modern art’s middle years, Making Choices will present about twenty distinct exhibitions. Some will be devoted to particular artistic episodes, disputes, themes, programs, or traditions; others will concentrate on a single medium or moment; and others will span the century, drawing on works from virtually every one of the Museum’s collections.
The goal of Making Choices is simultaneously to emphasize the richness and variety of modern art as it is represented in The Museum of Modern Art’s collections and to evoke the divergent goals, philosophies, and traditions that brought these works into being.
Among the exhibitions are:
The Dream of Utopia/Utopia of the Dream: A consideration of the sharp opposition between the radical visions set forth by Surrealism, on the one hand, and by the utopian abstraction of artists such as Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich, on the other
Modern Living 1 and 2 : Two separate displays of furniture and architecture that embody the domestic ideals that arose in the wake of the two World Wars
Walker Evans & Company: An experiment in mapping artistic tradition, in which the photographs of Walker Evans will be presented together with related work by his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors
Anatomically Incorrect: A close look at the distorted depictions of the body by artists working in the Surrealist milieu, shown with contemporary works that exaggerate and update the theme
Modern Art despite Modernism: A reconsideration of the many and often vigorous conservative reactions to radical modernist art
Useless Science: An investigation of the theme of pseudoscience, through artworks that mimicked scientific methods; and of the absurd as a philosophical, literary, and artistic concept
One Thing and Another: The Double Life of Transparency in Twentieth-Century Art: An exploration of the formal device of transparency employed in a wide range of mediums
New York Salon and Paris Salon: A cross-section of painting and sculpture that marked the beginning of the New York School’s rise to prominence, and a companion exhibition featuring the stylistically diverse work typical of the annual Paris Salons from the 1920s through the 1950s
Smaller installations will be devoted to individual accomplishment in the diverse work of Jean Arp, the etchings of Giorgio Morandi, and the photography of Man Ray and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
EXHIBITIONS
Summary descriptions of the group of exhibitions that comprise Making Choices are outlined on a separate document. Additional components will be announced at a later date.
FILM PROGRAM
Many of the projects organized by the Department of Film and Video will address the period examined in Making Choices. For example, continuous screenings of found footage from home movies are included in the gallery exhibition Modern Living 2, and, to complement this installation, the program Home Movies will be screened in the Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters from March through September. Screening films and videos in a wide range of formats, the exhibition traces the development of the genre, from its earliest manifestation at the birth of cinema, through celebrity home movies and historical works, to later permutations of the form. By focusing thematically on the family, the series examines how the definition of the home movie, as well as roles within the family structure, have changed over the decades.
ORGANIZATION Making Choices is coordinated by Peter Galassi, Chief Curator, Department of Photography; Robert Storr, Senior Curator, Anne Umland, Associate Curator, Beth Handler, Curatorial Assistant, and Carina Evangelista, Research Assistant, of the Department of Painting and Sculpture; and Josiana Bianchi, Public Program Coordinator, Department of Education.
Collaborating with the coordinators are: M. Darsie Alexander, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography; Michael Carter, Library Assistant, Library; Starr Figura, Assistant Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books; Kristin Helmick-Brunet, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings; Paulo Herkenhoff, Adjunct Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture; Sarah Hermanson, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography; Virginia Heckert, Newhall Fellow, Department of Photography; Laura Hoptman, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings; Jytte Jensen, Associate Curator, Department of Film and Video; Matilda McQuaid, Associate Curator, Department of Architecture and Design; Harper Montgomery, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books; Anne Morra, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Video; Christopher Mount, Assistant Curator, Department of Architecture and Design; Peter Reed, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design; Wendy Weitman, Associate Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books; Charles Wright, Jr., Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
PUBLICATION
The publication Making Choices is parallel to but different in conception from the exhibitions it accompanies. To capture the simultaneity of styles and artistic perspectives that were in play at any one time, the book will present a cross-section of works in all mediums from each of four years—1929, 1939, 1948, and 1955. This across-the-board look at successive moments is designed to evoke the alternately converging and diverging development of different mediums, and the fresh initiatives, hardy survivals, active disputes, and unexpected correspondences that characterize the maturity of modern art. In addition, the Museum will issue Modern Art despite Modernism and Walker Evans & Company, publications to accompany two individual exhibitions within the second cycle of MoMA2000.
ABOUT MoMA2000 Making Choices is the second cycle of MoMA2000, which began in October 1999. The Museum of Modern Art’s response to the millennium, MoMA2000 is a 17-month-long series of exhibitions that presents well-known and less-familiar art works in unusual juxtapositions and new contexts. An exploration both of the Museum’s unparalleled collection and of new ways of displaying it, MoMA2000 provides a provocative look at some of this century’s most compelling and powerful art. Conceived as a preliminary laboratory for the reinstallation of the Museum’s collection after the completion of our new building project, it offers fresh interpretations of the premises, meanings, and diversity of modern art.
MoMA2000 presents three major exhibition cycles that focus on distinct historical periods: 1880 to 1920 (ModernStarts ), 1920 to 1960 (Making Choices), and 1960 to the present (Open Ends). Each historical cycle will be interspersed with works from other periods, creating a dialogue between various historical moments. Installed throughout the entire Museum, works in all mediums will be presented in innovative, multidisciplinary ways.
