CATEGORY: PUBLICATIONS

While at MoMA, I wrote an essay for the publication Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art entitled “Mind, Body, Sculpture: Alice Aycock, Mary Miss, and Jackie Winsor in the 1970s.” Read more

In conjunction with the Museum’s Modern Women initiative, on Saturday, November 20, 2010, PopRally presented An Evening with the Raincoats (check out photos from the event), featuring a live performance by the legendary post-punk band and a DJ set by Kathleen Hanna. In this video and in the guest posts below, the Raincoats’ Gina Birch and Ana da Silva shared their thoughts on performing at MoMA… Read more

Much has been written about Lillian Gish over the course of her 75-year career, and as the Museum’s retrospective of the actress’s films nears a close (concluding with a screening of the Museum’s newly preserved print of Orphans of the Storm on Monday, December 13), I would like to pay particular attention to the writings of three of Gish’s friends, colleagues, and critics—Anita Loos, Andrew Sarris, and Mike Kaplan—who offered the kind of personal insights that aren’t often evident among all of the written discussion of her career. Read more

In conjuction with the Museum’s Modern Women initiative, PopRally presents An Evening with the Raincoats at MoMA on Saturday, November 20. Today’s guest blogger, Kathleen Hanna—founding member of Bikini Kill, co-creator of the zine Riot Grrrl, and lead singer of the dance-punk band Le Tigre—will DJ the event.

In 1990 I was given a mixtape with The Raincoats’ “Fairytale in the Supermarket” on it. It was the first time I’d ever heard them, and to this day it remains one of my favorite songs. As a 20-year-old who had just starting touring with a band, the song opened up a whole new world to me—one where I didn’t have to play guitar solos or make music the same way my male peers did. Read more

One of the key experimental filmmakers of her generation, Barbara Hammer (American, b. 1939) is renowned for creating the earliest and most extensive body of avant-garde films on lesbian life and sexuality. In this fascinating video interview, she talks about her career as a filmmaker and the development of feminist and queer filmmaking over the last thirty years. Read more

Before I read MoMA’s new publication Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents, if someone had asked me to identify a painting from MoMA’s collection that was of central importance to a generation of artists emerging from the Cultural Revolution in China, I’m pretty sure I would not have picked Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World. Read more

On October 15, MoMA launches the fifth volume in its Primary Documents series, Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents, which was edited by Professor Wu Hung. The publication brings together, translates, and contextualizes primary documents that are pertinent to a deeper understanding of recent artistic practice in China, but which were not previously available in the English language. Read more

For the publication Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art, Michelle Elligott, the Museum Archivist, contributed a wonderful essay entitled “Modern Women: A Partial History,” a kind of lexicon comprising historical entries on and capsule biographies of selected noteworthy women throughout the Museum’s history. In this video, she discusses some of these women and their impact both at MoMA and within the museum field in general. Read more

One of the foremost younger scholars working today on art and gender, Aruna D’Souza wrote “Float the Boat: Finding a Place for Feminism in the Museum,” one of three introductions to the book Modern Women: Women at The Museum of Modern Art (2010). In her essay, and in the above video interview, she talks about the evolution of feminist art history and criticism, and the role within it of the museum in general and of MoMA in particular. Read more

An interview with Jay Levenson, Director, International Program, The Museum of Modern Art

In 1952, The Museum of Modern Art established the International Program of Circulating Exhibitions, which was supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, with the aim of sending exhibitions to museums around the world. The following year, the International Council was organized to provide long-term financial support to the program.

Amy Horschak: In light of MoMA’s upcoming installation Abstract Expressionist New York and the exhibition of many of the “AbEx” artists abroad by the International Program (IP) in the 1950s, can you comment on the often-made claims that the IP was, at that time, part of a CIA project? Read more