Written Works: Modernist Thought and Human Experience

Apr 1–Jun 29, 2015

MoMA

Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh to Gauguin (detail). From The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Volume 3. Greenwhich: New York Graphic Society, 1958. p. 285
  • Education Center, Mezzanine Mezzanine

From Paul Gauguin’s Noa Noa to Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Net to John Cage’s Silence, Written Works presents a selection of groundbreaking art texts written by iconic modern and contemporary artists. Artists’ memoirs, biographies, diaries, letters, and essays are filled with thoughts on spirituality, philosophy, aesthetics, politics, and the human experience. These works, naturally capturing the zeitgeist of the artists’ times, crystallized trailblazing ideas that have greatly influenced the evolution of modern art. Written Works highlights the innovative thoughts that have sparked the creation of paramount works of art, many of which can be found in MoMA’s collection.

Organized by Ana Maria Sapountzis, Library Assistant.

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].