“See and Hear Your Favorite Stars on Scopitone” advertisement. c. 1965. Lithograph. Gift of Bob Orlowsky, Film Study Center Special Collections

My first encounter with Scopitone came about during the course of a joyride with out-of-state friends in in the summer of 1971. As evening fell they thought it would be amusing to leave me by the side of an unfamiliar suburban road in Connecticut, as a test of character. This sounds like the opening scene of a film noir or a creature feature, but instead I found myself in a roadside soda fountain filled with teenagers eating ice cream and watching dancers move on the screen of an unusually big jukebox.

Here’s what’s going on this week:

The Education Department is passionate about engaging visitors with art and ideas, bringing people together and creating experiences in which the visitor becomes an active participant. Most recently, there has been an initiative to bring more participatory, hands-on, and creative experiences outside of classroom walls and closer to art in the galleries. For example, from May to September 2015, 16 “pop-up” art-making sessions took place right outside the exhibition Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup Cans and Other Works: 1953–1967</a>. Each of the afternoon sessions was two hours long and open to anyone who wanted to take part.

Don McCullin. Turkish woman mourning the death of her husband, Cyprus, 1964. 1964. Image courtesy Don McCullin and the filmmakers

“War is partly madness, mostly insanity, and the rest of it’s schizophrenia. You do ask yourself, ‘Why am I here? What is my purpose? What’s this got to do with photography?’ And it goes on and on, the questioning. You’re trying to stay alive, you’re trying to take pictures, you’re trying to justify your presence there.

In 2012, MoMA launched the online catalogue, Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books (moma.org/bourgeoisprints) to document the full range of Bourgeois’s printmaking. At that time, the catalogue included some 400 works. The number has now grown to nearly 3,000, with an ultimate goal of approximately 4,000 items. The site is designed for the general art pubic as well as for specialists.

Artists, curators, designers, activists, and revelers all join us for a wide array of programs and events this week. Don’t miss out!

Dance and performance are enjoying a renaissance at MoMA—take for example, performances happening at MoMA this fall, such as Trajal Harrell’s The Return of La Argentina or Walid Raad’s Scratching on things I could disavow: Walkthrough. This tendency is apparent at other modern and contemporary arts organizations around the world as well, like the Live program at Tate Modern. But at MoMA the interest in dance and theater is not new. In fact, since its inception in 1929, The Museum of Modern Art has adopted a radical approach to presenting the art of our time.

The Ghost Goes West. 1935. Great Britain. Directed by René Clair. Courtesy United Artists/Photofest

Whenever I am on a Metro North train, barreling along the Hudson River north of New York City, I try to sit on the river side of the car in order to get a good look at Bannerman’s Castle. Perhaps you, too, have been intrigued by the carcass of what appears to be a red brick castle fallen into decay, about 1,000 feet from the shoreline on the six-acre Pollepel Island. Having just watched René Clair’s The Ghost Goes West, I couldn’t help but think of the decrepit, battered ruin.

Design and dance take the spotlight this week. Here are the highlights:

How well do you know your MoMA? If you think you can identify the artist and title of these works from MoMA’s collection—all currently on view in the Museum—please submit your answers by leaving a comment on this post. We’ll provide the answers next month (on Friday, November 13).