The first gallery of the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33” contains works by John Cage’s contemporaries and influences, including such well-known names as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Albers, Jasper Johns, Barnett Newman, and Robert Rauschenberg. Works by two lesser-known West Coast artists, Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, also occupy this space, pointing to Cage’s brief but seminal years living in Seattle.

April in Washington, DC. Cherry blossoms, sunny weather, and an in-depth analysis of one of Washington’s top attractions: the Newseum. Boasting six levels, 15 theaters, and 16 exhibits, the Newseum is one of the largest museums I have ever been to. Functioning as an interactive learning experience and a production facility—Al-Jazeera America broadcasts from the building—the Newseum is structured in a radically different way than MoMA.

Last Friday, May 16, we celebrated the opening of MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me, an interactive space that has been organized in conjunction with the exhibition Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988, on view in the sixth-floor galleries through August 24, 2014. Taking Clark’s art as a reference point, the Studio presents a series of drop-in programs, participatory experiences, and artist-led workshops that explore the intersections between art, therapeutic practice, and the ways in which we relate to objects and people through physical encounters.

Like all previous MoMA Studios, MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me is a free, interactive space open to visitors of all ages, and offers experiential learning experiences that complement looking and talking about works of art in the galleries, allowing for engagement with art in hands-on, creative ways. Visitors can experiment, learn, play, and create as they make connections between their lives, their own creativity, and the processes and materials of modern and contemporary art.

The process of putting this particular MoMA Studio together has been a unique experience due to the nature of Lygia Clark’s work, which is often dynamic and sensorial in nature—a quality that is highlighted in the exhibition itself, which has a central component that is about engaging the public in participatory ways within the galleries. This aspect of the exhibition parallels the planning of our Studio programming and has allowed for a fruitful collaboration with the curatorial team and the exhibition facilitators.

In developing the focus and scope of MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me, and in the hopes of revealing the profound resonance Clark’s work has had with contemporary artists, we have collaborated with a talented group of artists from near and far, to present an exciting series of programs for this MoMA Studio. These artists include Ricardo Basbaum, Carlito Carvalhosa, Stephanie Diamond and Tamara Vanderwal, Michel Groisman, Jeanine Oleson, and Allison Smith.

Perhaps more than previous Studios, this one is conceived as a space that comes alive most with the activation of the workshops and events by willing participants, in collaboration with artists. This week the workshops kicked off with Carlito Carvalhosa’s public action in the The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and MoMA Studio on May 20 and 21, followed by Michel Groisman’s Polvo and Sirva-Se workshops, which begin tomorrow, May 22 and run through the Memorial Day weekend. We are following Clark’s philosophy, “the work is in the act,” and we invite you all to join us! Visit MoMA.org/MoMAstudio for details.

These notes accompany screenings of Robert Altman’s </em>McCabe & Mrs. Miller</a> on May 21, 22, and 23 in Theater 3.</p>

Robert Altman (1925–2006) strikes me as being, on balance, the most interesting American director to come along after Orson Welles. He was obstreperous, inconsistent (one critic described his career as “rather weird”), sometimes difficult to work with (you don’t argue with a former bomber pilot), and provocatively idiosyncratic.

“Artists at work” is a bit of a theme this week, from artist-hosted activities in MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me, to film programs that immerse viewers in the biographical and documentary practices of art making.

On May 5 The Metropolitan Museum of Art held its annual star-studded Costume Institute Gala, complete with red carpet and paparazzi, timed to coincide with the opening of a new fashion exhibition about a legendary couturier: Charles James: Beyond Fashion. But possibly the first gallery exhibit of James’s work opened 33 years ago at MoMA PS1,

This past year the MoMA Archives processed and opened to the public the full record history of MoMA’s International Council and International Program, a collection so large that it required the work of three staff members to complete it in one year. One benefit of processing a large collection as a team was the opportunity to share our most interesting discoveries with one another.

In honor of NYCxDESIGN—New York City’s official citywide celebration of design—MoMA Design Store is pleased to present a suite of products brought to life by Kickstarter.

Since Kickstarter launched five years ago, thousands of people on all seven continents (even Antarctica!) have used the platform to share their ideas, shape the world around us, and design the future.

These notes accompany screenings of Eric Rohmer’s </em>My Night at Maud’s</a> on May 14, 15, and 16 in Theater 3.</p>

At first glance, going from last week’s film (Night of the Living Dead) to this week’s (My Night at Maud’s) may seem like a journey from the ridiculous to the sublime, but not so fast.

This week at MoMA is all about celebrating—from a special night at the Museum honoring arts and philanthropy, to a partnership fostering young design talent, to a space that empowers individuals through collective gestures.