MoMA visitors participate in a Polke Pop-Up Activity

If you happen to visit the exhibition Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963–2010 on Tuesday afternoons you will notice something different: the sight of Museum visitors making art inspired by Sigmar Polke’s processes, in close proximity to his works of art. This shift toward more hands-on learning experiences is not something that happened overnight.

The video crew captures Lisa leading a teacher professional development session in MoMA’s fourth-floor Painting and Sculpture Galleries. Photo: Stephanie Pau

On July 7, we launch Art & Activity: Interactive Strategies for Engaging with Art, a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). The course is part of an ongoing partnership with MOOC provider Coursera, to provide free professional development opportunities for K–12 teachers worldwide.

Jaws. 1975. USA. Directed by Steven Spielberg

These notes accompany screenings of Steven Spielberg’s </em>Jaws</a> on July 2, 3, and 4 in Theater 3.</p>

Back on March 30, 1974, when I was introduced to the young director of Sugarland Express, I had no idea I was playing a miniscule role on the periphery of one of the greatest revolutions in film history.

This May, I had the opportunity to travel to Marfa, Texas, using a generous travel stipend that is one of the fantastic perks of my internship. I’d always wanted to go to Marfa, a small town in West Texas that’s home to site-specific installations by Donald Judd, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Ilya Kabakov, Dan Flavin, and Roni Horn, among others.

This week, as we celebrate the Fourth of July, MoMA’s summer live-music programming begins, along with film debuts, new exhibitions, and much more. Join us!

Warm Up 2013. © 2013 MoMA PS1; Photo: Zachary Newton

Warm Up, MoMA PS1’s vibrant annual music series, has become a staple of New York City summers. The series features a curated program that explores a vast range of experimental music, live bands, and DJs.

First stop, the birth place of innovation as we know it, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; on right: Origins of the V&A. Print showing foreign departments in the Great Exhibition, 1851. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

R&D, or research and development, is commonly associated with innovation. Museums, traditionally, are not. Museums are associated with history. Even when displaying contemporary art, they look back into a recent history, not the future. Innovation demands looking into the future, conducting research into the unknown, without a concrete, expected outcome. A leap of faith.

Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Mauricio Pezo, Sófia von Ellrichshausen. Cien House, Concepción, Chile. 2009–11. Concrete model, 14 × 14 × 5″ (35.6 × 35.6 × 12.7 cm). Photo: Pamela Popeson

I’m a big fan of buildings, which is to say walking around looking at buildings, taking city architecture tours by bike, or car trips out to a particular site, checking out exteriors, interiors—all of it. But for me, architects’ models and drawings are really where it’s at.

There’s an intimacy to architectural drawings and models that fosters a feeling of a sort of partnership, offering an insider’s invitation to that place where it’s clear that the ideas behind making buildings are about so much more than the plans for access elevators or where to put the closets.

Massimo and Lella Vignelli. Photo: Barry McKinley. Courtesy AIGA

When Massimo Vignelli, one of the greatest graphic designers of the 20th century, was close to death in mid-May, his son Luca informed the whole design community—at Vignelli’s request—so we could say goodbye with our thoughts and with a letter.