Installation view of Isaac Julien: Ten Thousand Waves at The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Jonathan Muzikar

Isaac Julien (British, b. 1960) is one of the most innovative artists working at the intersection of media art and cinema today. With his vivid multi-screen works—fractured narratives that fuse breathtaking images with immersive sonic elements—Julien is internationally regarded as a key figure in the vitalization of the gallery space through new exhibition strategies of time-based art.

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.

With the recent death of Lou Reed and the U.K. release of Morrissey’s Autobiography

As indicated in the previous posts in this series, MoMA paintings conservators Cindy Albertson, Anny Aviram, and Michael Duffy have been studying five Magritte paintings for the past two years in preparation for Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938.

Cover of the publication Isa Genzken: Retrospective published by The Museum of Modern Art

Isa Genzken is arguably one of the most influential female artists of the past few decades, her impact visible in the work of young sculpture and assemblage artists worldwide. MoMA’s upcoming exhibition Isa Genzken: Retrospective is the first comprehensive survey of her career in the United States, and the largest exhibition of her work to date. The accompanying catalogue explores her unique and decidedly diverse career through illustrated-plate sections and essays spanning a more than 40-year period. Genzken’s artwork is markedly varied and the narrative of her career is unconventional. She’s worked in nearly every imaginable medium, including sculpture, photography, film, assemblage and collage. The catalogue’s essays offer new insights on her aesthetic outlook and approach.

Curator Sabine Breitwieser’s essay covers Genzken’s artistic output from 1970 to 1996, discussing her early geometric drawings and sculptures, and her presence in the art centers of West Germany as a student at the Düsseldorf Academy and in Cologne. In the 1990s, Genzken moved away from post-Minimalism and began to make her first collage works.

Isa Genzken in her studio in Düsseldorf, 1982. Image courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin

Laura Hoptman, curator in MoMA’s Department of Painting and Sculpture, explores this career break and later parts of Genzken’s career—from 1993 to the present—when her collage and sculptural assemblages and installations grew in scale and conceptual complexity.

Isa Genzken. Empire/Vampire III, 13. 2004. Spray paint on metal and glass, chromogenic color prints, and plastic on wood pedestal, 65 3/4 x 23 5/8 x 18 1/8″ (167 x 60 x 46 cm). neugerriemschneider gallery, Berlin. © Isa Genzken

The book also includes focused thematic essays. Scholar Lisa Lee writes on Genzken’s relationship with architecture and public sculpture in “Isa Genzken: Model Citizen,” considering her experiments with scale, perception and even mutiny, with projects like Fuck the Bauhaus.  In “Isa Genzken: Himmel und Erde (Heaven and Earth),” Michael Darling argues for a thematic consistency in Genzken’s variegated oeuvre, positing that she “has married radical formal experimentation and variety to themes that are timeless, poignant and deeply humanistic, rooting her inquiries in the material facts of our world but offering pathways to topics, experiences, and concepts that, by definition, escape the grasp of easy resolution.” Jeffrey Grove’s essay, “Isa Genzken’s Homage to Herself” discusses motifs of autobiography and self-representation in her work, particularly in photography and film. An illustrated chronology by Stephanie Weber, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Media & Performance Art at MoMA guides readers through the exciting trajectory of Genzken’s career, from birth to her first American retrospective at MoMA.

Isa Genzken: Retrospective is on view from November 23, 2013–March 10, 2014 in the The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery on the Museum’s sixth floor. A preview of the catalogue can be downloaded here.

America, America. 1963. USA. Directed and written by Elia Kazan

These notes accompany screenings of Elia Kazan’s </em>America, America</a> on November 20, 21, and 22.</p>

I first wrote about Elia Kazan’s America, America in 1971, at the time of our Kazan retrospective; in 1977 I did a program note on the picture for our Films from the Archives series; and I also had the opportunity to interview Kazan twice during that decade for publication.

Installation view of There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 12, 2013–June 22, 2014

Though the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4′33" primarily draws upon works from MoMA’s collection, with a few key outside loans, the voice of John Cage himself was instrumental in guiding the selection of artists, and, in some cases, the specific works on view.

“This is real time, it is modern history in the making.”—Sarah Charlesworth on her work, Movie-Television-News-History, June 21, 1979

MoMA’s celebration of the landmark year 1913 continues with the 21st installment in our series of videos highlighting important works from 1913 in the Museum’s collection.

Still from the “Chloroform” video. 2013. USA. Directed by Sofia Coppola

As members of MoMA’s PopRally committee, our goal is to provide our audience with a dynamic program of unique, one-of-a-kind experiences that engage with our exhibitions and collection. So when we received word that Sofia Coppola—who is herself represented in MoMA’s film collection—had directed a new video for Phoenix’s song “Chloroform,” we jumped at the opportunity to present the exclusive premiere.

Lord of the Flies. 1963. Great Britain. Directed by Peter Brook

These notes accompany screenings of Peter Brook’s </em>Lord of the Flies</a> on November 13, 14, and 15.</p>

Peter Brook, now 88 and generally thought of as one of the most innovative theater directors of the past century, has been directing for the stage for 70 of those years.