The research subject: a brown paper bag. Simple, right? Nope.

After Counter Space opened, an AP reporter brought it to our attention that a reader was disputing the attribution of a brown paper bag on display in the exhibition.

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.

1860 (I Mille di Garibaldi). 1933. Italy. Directed by Alessandro Blasetti

These notes accompany the Alessandro Blasetti program on November 3, 5, and 5 in Theater 3.

Alessandro Blasetti (1900–1987), a law school graduate and failed movie extra, started out as a film critic and participant in what might be viewed as a forerunner of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) of the 1950s and 1960s: the Augustus cooperative. Blasetti and his circle were rebelling against an Italian cinema dominated by costume epics and melodramas, the kinds of films that had made Rome one of the premiere movie capitals of the world before World War I.

The Rising Currents exhibition at MoMA closed on October 11, and as we have worked on the de-installation of the show in the intervening weeks, I have had a chance to reflect on the exhibition and the project as a whole. As I’ve noted here previously, the workshop and exhibition were precedent-setting in many ways—for myself as a curator, for MoMA as an institution, and, in some ways, for the New York architecture and landscape design community.

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.

Check out this selection of haunted tricks and treats, specially prepared for your Halloween-weekend pleasure.

Mangue-Bangue director Neville D’Ameida photographed during a comic moment, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2008

I take my work as a curator very seriously. I consider myself fortunate to put into practice on a daily basis the knowledge I gained as an undergraduate and graduate film and art history student. But honestly, we’re not saving lives here at MoMA or finding the means for alternate energy sources that will sustain our planet for millennia. My mother is proud of my professional achievements too, but she’ll never have the chance to say to her friends “my daughter, the Nobel Prize winner.” Even so, the work of a film curator is significant, enduring, and critical to the history of cinema.

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!

Hashim Sarkis ALUD. Housing for the Fishermen of Tyre. Tyre, Lebanon. 1998–2008. Image by Joumana Jamhouri

MoMA’s exhibition Small Scale, Big Change exposes the fallacy of opposing architecture’s autonomy to its social engagement.

Over the past twelve years, our office has been working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in rural Lebanon, designing projects related to social and economic development. After the 1975-1990 wars, many relief-based NGOs have shifted their attention to development.

Man of Aran. 1934. Great Britain. Directed by Robert Flaherty

These notes accompany the Robert Flaherty and John Grierson Program on October 27, 28, and 29 in Theater 3.

Robert Flaherty (1884–1951) is credited with being the father of the documentary. There had, of course, been “actuality” films from the very beginning of cinema; the Lumiere brothers sent film crews around the world to bring the wonders of the planet to audiences long before jets made it possible for large numbers of people to travel to exotic or remote locales.