Still from MoMA's video The Painting Techniques of Mark Rothko: No. 16 (Red, Brown, and Black)

At the beginning of the video on the painting techniques of Barnett Newman that we produced for MoMA’s Abstract Expressionist New York iPad app (and the exhibition’s website), Corey D’Augustine, a conservator and instructor of the on-site and online course Materials and Techniques of Postwar Abstract Painting tells this story:

History Is Made at Night. 1937. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage

These notes accompany the screening of Frank Borzage’s </i>History Is Made at Night</a> on January 5, 6, and 7 in Theater 3.</p>

Frank Borzage (1893–1962) (like last week’s subject, Leo McCarey) was a great romanticist who deserves to be better remembered. In the silent period, after a decade-long apprenticeship as a director and sometime actor, he made such visually striking, stylish, and deliriously romantic films as Seventh Heaven (winner of the very first Oscar for directing), Street Angel (which we looked at last spring), The River, and Lucky Star, all starring Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor (except for the forgettable Mary Duncan in The River.) Borzage’s career took a few strange turns in the sound period, especially for a former minor silver miner from Salt Lake City.

Bernardo Bertolucci. Photo by Brad Balfour

In December I had the very amazing opportunity to participate in a roundtable interview with famed Italian director and screenwriter Bernardo Bertolucci, who was in town for the opening of MoMA’s full-career retrospective of his work.

Make Way for Tomorrow. 1937. USA. Directed by Leo McCarey

These notes accompany the screening of Leo McCarey’s </i>Make Way for Tomorrow</a> on December 29, 30, and 31 in Theater 3.</p>

Leo McCarey (1898–1969) reached his creative peak in 1937, the year of The Awful Truth and Make Way for Tomorrow. He had already written and directed countless Hal Roach shorts, discovered the wacky chemistry between Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and handled the likes of Eddie Cantor, Mae West, and the Marx Brothers. Make Way for Tomorrow is a film of devastating emotional impact and almost indescribable inner beauty. The great Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu, gave McCarey credit for inspiring his own best film, Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story), another masterpiece from 1953 about aging parents and insensitive families.

On Sunday, December 19, MoMA visitors were treated to a “walk-in performance” by artist and musician Patti Smith, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of prominent and challenging French writer and political activist Jean Genet. The performance, in MoMA’s Marron Atrium, could not have been better. I picked Patti up in a car at 11:30 a.m., and Michael Stipe had joined her, so we all drove to MoMA with the guitars, and at noon sharp, Michael opened for Patti with a heartbreakingly beautiful song by David Bowie about Jean Genet, “The Jean Genie.”

Five for Friday, written by a variety of MoMA staff members, is our attempt to spotlight some of the compelling, charming, and downright curious works in the Museum’s rich collection. Since this Friday is a holiday for many, we’re publishing a day early. Inside/Out will return with new posts on Monday, January 3.

A poem in five pictures…

After viewing the exhibition Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen, our team at MoMA was inspired by the Frankfurt Kitchen’s impact on our modern-day experiences of preparing and sharing food in our homes.

Roe Ethridge. Old Fruit. 2010. Chromogenic color print. Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York. © 2010 Roe Ethridge

One of four artists featured in this year’s New Photography exhibition, Roe Ethridge has contributed photographs to many international magazines, including the New York Time Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Visionaire, I-D, Vice, Artforum, Flash Art, and Art Review.

Zilvinas Kempinas’s sculptures are magic. Somehow, the air currents created by two industrial-strength fans turn the two loops of videotape in Double O into a living, dancing sculpture, performing tirelessly for hours in MoMA’s Agnes Gund Garden Lobby.

These notes accompany the screening of George Cukor’s </i>Camille</a> on December 22, 23, and 24 in Theater 3.</p>

Of all the major film directors of the classical Hollywood period, only two were local New York City boys. Although one of them, Raoul Walsh, romanticized the city in several of his films, he was a cowboy at heart. George Cukor (1899–1983), on the other hand, seemed to bring the city’s cosmopolitan culture to his career. I don’t mean to suggest that natal geography is destiny, but being close to Broadway as a child and becoming a stage manager there at 20 was bound to have an impact.