Egg Pedestal 3-D Screen
Getting my initial epiphany of forms for Nocturne of the Limax maximus, which will be installed in MoMA’s lobby on November 17, into its physical manifestation was a multilayered process, with each step leading to the next—and in strange ways going backward at times to maximize the potential of the previous step’s efficiency and interconnectedness with the subsequent steps of production.
Carleton Watkins. Late George Cling Peaches. 1887–88
I’ve recently had the good fortune to assume the role of cataloguer in MoMA’s Department of Photography. The greatest perk of my position is simply that I get to work with the photographs in the Museum’s collection on a daily basis. One of my first tasks in the department was to catalog a number of important works that recently entered the collection—some by purchase, some by gift. Among my favorites were three photographs by Carleton Watkins, including this awe-inspiring albumen silver print of a crate of peaches; works by Judith Joy Ross and Inge Morath; and a collection of snapshots that came in as the generous gift of New York collector Peter J. Cohen.
Paula Hayes. Slug and Egg (digital rendering of the installation Nocturne of the Limax maximus). 2010. Installation: cast acrylic, hand-blown glass, cnc-milled topographical wall and ceiling attachment, full-spectrum lighting, and tropical planting. Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Courtesy of the Artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery. © Paula Hayes
A little over a year and a half ago, Ann Temkin, MoMA’s Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, asked me to consider an “intervention” in MoMA’s Fifty-third Street lobby. Of course I was very excited, knowing that no work of ambitious scale had been installed in this very populated, chaotically inhabited area of the Museum, with only a few indications of the etiquette of how to be in the space—information here, tickets there, some moving image screen projects that can be indicative of information regarding the interior exhibitions. Doors revolving, air and environmental aspects of the outdoors spilling in with the visitors. Perfect!
Installation view of Projects 93: Dinh Q. Lê, by Dinh Q. Lê in collaboration with Tran Quoc Hai, Le Van Danh, Phu-Nam Thuc Ha, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen. The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of the artist, Fund for the Twenty-First Century, and Committee on Media and Performance Art Funds. © 2010 Dinh Q. Lê. Courtesy the artist; P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York; Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica; and Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Photo: Jason Mandella
As visitors enter the Museum and ascend the grand staircase to the second floor, they’ll likely notice Arthur Young’s Bell-47D1 Helicopter hovering overhead as though in mid-flight. Manufactured from the mid-1940s through the early 1970s, this helicopter was noted for its sleek design consisting of a seamless plastic bubble with an open frame tail. A few hundred feet away, past the Marron Atrium and inside the Projects Gallery, visitors will discover a strikingly different helicopter.
David Smith. Don Quixote, state I. 1952. Lithograph. Publisher: the artist, New York. Printer: Michael Ponce de Léon and Margaret Lowengrund, New York. Edition: 14. The Museum of Modern Art. Stephen F. Dull Fund, 2010
I’ve written before about some of the various ways that works are acquired for MoMA’s collection, a primary one being in preparation for upcoming exhibitions. Abstract Expressionist New York, opening here next month, provided one such opportunity.
Over the course of the past few months the conservation of Floor Cake has been completed. We would like to use the next posts to describe our treatment and the results.
Before cleaning we consolidated any areas of flaking paint with Lascaux Acrylic Adhesive.
Lascaux was chosen for its low viscosity or ability to wick under paint and mattness upon drying.
We then found that a combination of cleaning techniques yielded the safest and best results. We first vacuumed the entire surface of the cake with a variable-suction vacuum set to very low suction. Then we began with dry cleaning to see just how much dirt and grime we could remove without moisture. Of all of our methods, we found rubber soot sponges to be very gentle and highly effective. We cut the sponges into small, manageable wedges and then lightly rubbed and patted the entire surface overall, including the drop and sprinkle, to remove an initial layer of grime.
Bruce Nauman. Days (installation view). 2009. One audio source consisting of seven stereo audio files, fourteen speakers, two amplifiers, and additional equipment. Dimensions variable. Audio (fourteen channels). Continuous play. The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Committee on Painting and Sculpture Funds, Gift of The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, Agnes Gund, The Hess Foundation, Michael Ovitz, Jerry I. Speyer, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation, Donald B. Marron, and The Jill and Peter Kraus Contemporary Acquisition Fund) and Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, Basel, Switzerland.
Bruce Nauman’s exhibition Days, which currently occupies MoMA’s third-floor special exhibition gallery, provokes a reaction, if nothing else. One need wait only a moment in the sun-dappled corridor outside the entrance to witness a gallimaufry of expressions—grins, scowls, exclamations, sighs, guffaws—on the faces of people as they exit.
Alexander (Sándor) Bortnyik. Ma VII - IK (Grafikai) Kiállitása. 1919
While we always believe in the works we propose for addition to the MoMA collection, some works stand apart in extraordinarily strong ways. They speak to us because of their great historical significance, aesthetic power or, in my case with the above poster, because of true love.
Confetti from George Maciunas’s New Flux Year. c. 1967. The Museum of Modern Art. The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift, 2008
Upon opening an orange faux-reptile-skin box marked only with the typed words “top” and “pull,” we received quite a surprise: out jumped a coiled toy snake and a shower of confetti printed with the words “New Flux Year.” Rattled, we soon found that the joke was on us, as we were left returning every last scrap of paper, along with the spring-loaded snake, back into the box before shutting it carefully.
In this video interview, Veronica Roberts, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture, discusses her exhibition Lee Bontecou: All Freedom in Every Sense, one of the exhibitions celebrating the landmark publication of Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art.
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