MoMA’s celebration of the landmark year 1913 continues with the 14th installment in our series of videos highlighting important works from 1913 in the Museum’s collection.

Rita Tushingham and Murray Melvin in A Taste of Honey. 1961. Great Britain. Directed by Tony Richardson

These notes accompany screenings of Tony Richardson’s </em>A Taste of Honey</a> on September 18, 19, and 20 in Theater 3.</p>

Tony Richardson (1928–1991), like Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson, came out the British Realist school of directors.

This past spring MoMA decided to team up with the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) provider Coursera to offer professional development for K–12 teachers all over the world. As the assistant director of School and Teacher Programs at MoMA, the MOOC ball landed in my court.

Warm Up 2013 closed out an incredible season with a line-up of extremely talented and diverse DJs and producers performing to a packed courtyard. MoMA PS1 is extremely grateful to the amazing curatorial team who worked for months to program another amazing summer.

How well do you know your MoMA? If you think you can identify the artist and title of each of these works—all currently on view in the Painting and Sculpture galleries—please submit your answers by leaving a comment on this post. We’ll provide the answers next month (on Friday, October 11).

Robert Brownjohn. Let It Bleed (front cover). 1969. Lithograph, 12 3/8 x 12 3/8″ (31.4 x 31.4 cm)

One of the recent additions to MoMA’s design collection is the record jacket for the Rolling Stones album Let it Bleed, with cover art by Robert Brownjohn. Those of us of a certain age are likely to remember not only our first LP purchase

If you’ve been following the Jackson Pollock Conservation Project on Inside/Out, you know that Jackson Pollock’s monumental painting One: Number 31, 1950 underwent some changes in our Department of Conservation this past spring after conservators discovered sections of overpaint on its surface, vestiges of a restoration campaign from the 1960s. You can follow the entire process here.

Jackson Pollock. One: Number 31, 1950. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection Fund (by exchange). © 2013 Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Cover of the publication Pollock: One: Number 31, 1950, published by The Museum of Modern Art

The newest book in our One on One Series, Pollock: One: Number 31, 1950, also examines the history of this specific painting, but in an entirely different way. Author Charles Stuckey’s essay begins its investigation before the painting’s inception and follows it to the present day, considering its legacy and influence, which is visible in numerous contemporary artworks included in the book. In the late 1940s, Pollock began experimenting with a new method of painting, “drip painting” as it came to be known, where he would stand above a vast unframed piece of canvas and render kinetically: flinging, flicking, and, of course, dripping colors onto the canvas with various implements.

Pollock’s method eschewed the conventional notions of painting of the time, opting for raw, unstretched canvas and housepaint over prepared canvas and traditional oils, and darting around the floor of his barn studio rather than working quietly with a palette and easel. One: Number 31, 1950 is a masterful example of this signature style, a monumental work displaying Pollock’s energy and dexterity.

Did you know Jackson Pollock worked as a janitor at the Guggenheim Museum? Or that One: Number 31, 1950 was actually painted after Number 32, 1950 and before Number 30 (now called Autumn Rhythm) and Number 27, 1950?

Drawing from period magazine articles and quotes by Pollock, Lee Krasner, critics, and friends, Stuckey offers a narrative trajectory for the famed painting, following One: Number 31, 1950 from its premiere exhibition, to a stint in an apartment on Central Park West, to its final place in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art.

For more of Stuckey’s essay, download a preview of Pollock: One: Number 31, 1950 from our website.

Yojimbo. 1961. Japan. Directed by Akira Kurosawa

These notes accompany screenings of Akira Kurosawa’s </em>Yojimbo</a> on September 11, 12, and 13 in Theater 2.</p>

It would be hard to overstate the impact of the importation to the West, and particularly to America, of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon

Blikopeners, Photo: Tomek Whitfield

It is possible there is no cooler place to be an artsy young person than in the Netherlands. Were you curating art spaces in famous modern and contemporary art museums when you were 17? Or designing tours and educational programs at galleries? I sure wasn’t. But the teenagers with whom I met while on a professional development trip to the Netherlands are doing just that.

Robin’s photo on the wall in the Blikopener Spot

Robin is a Blikopener at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. As he and I walked around the museum, Robin explained to me that the Blikopeners (“Eye Openers”) are a group of teens at the museum who give tours to the general public and who run the Blikopener Spot, a gallery and educational space on the lower level of the new museum building. Marlous van Gastel, who oversees the program for the education department, looks for a variety of teens: outspoken leaders, quiet creative types, knowledgeable art historians. After attending interactive training sessions, the Blikopeners give tours of the museum in pairs. Robin studies art history and knows a lot about the works of art, so he likes to partner with people who are good at asking fruitful questions and engaging audiences in close looking. These Blikopeners never get bored—they can develop new tours and pick new partners, and they work with the curatorial and conservation departments to choose artworks for the Blikopener Spot.

They also partner with other teen programs across the Netherlands. I traveled to Rotterdam to meet with some of the people with whom they’ve collaborated at Showroom MAMA, a contemporary art center by and for young artists. MAMA has about 30 Rookies, young people ages 16-26 who work on all aspects of the center’s operations. Recruited and trained by Margriet Brouwer, the Rookies design exhibitions, develop educational programs, assist visiting artists, raise funds, and more. Bram, a Rookie and current intern (meaning he’s time-based, not project-based), oversees the MAMA Rocks Around website, a resource for Rookies who give tours of the center’s exhibitions to school groups. The website is in Dutch, but he explained to me that it includes suggestions for interactive activities (e.g. If the person in this artwork had a Facebook page, what would it look like? What would be this character’s online persona?) and other tricks of the trade. The management and development of this website is handed off to a new intern every few months to ensure that many Rookies get a chance to spearhead such a project.

From left to right: Martine, myself, Margriet, Bram, Lara, Yaël

Showroom MAMA also runs a Rookies Junior program, the first iteration of which began as MAMA’s All Girls Street Art Collective, a group which has since evolved into an independent artists’ collective called ONSKRUID. They were commissioned to create a six-meter high wall for the Kunsthal Rotterdam exhibition The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, and in July they led a workshop at the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Utrecht. I met with two of these nine young women, Lara and Yaël, who blew me away with their talent, confidence, and general awesomeness.

Artwork by Lara, Photo: Lotte Stekelenburg

Lara first approached the Collective as a writer unfamiliar with street art but eager for a creative outlet. Under the leadership of Martine Poot, the Collective explored street art around the Netherlands, met with female street artists, and created art collectively and independently. Each member came up with her own signature style. Staying true to her roots as a writer, Lara bases her artwork around words. Her tagline of choice? “More chaos please.” The Collective’s artworks were shown last spring at Showroom MAMA—a remarkable exhibition due to the quality of the artworks and the fact that all the artists were younger than 18.

These teens at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Showroom MAMA and the supportive staff who run these programs are changing the face of the Dutch contemporary art scene for the better. Art should not sit passively by in stuffy institutions. It should inspire and empower. Art should be in the hands and minds of the interested, the creative, and the young. Lara said it well: more chaos, please.

Delicate Steve performs in Fort Makers’ stage set design for Warm Up 2011 at MoMA PS1. Photo: Erin Kornfeld

In the MoMA PS1 spirit of always being committed to finding opportunity for art in all places, Warm Up’s stage design initiative, in its fourth year, is making it’s own impact on the frenetic, interdisciplinary collision that makes Warm Up what it is.

Our Warm Up parties are explosive and dramatic interactions between musicians, artists whose work is on view in our galleries, young architects, curators, production masterminds, ecstatic sun-dappled dancers, M. Wells’ insanely delicious barbecue (which is not to be mistaken for anything less than art—try those blueberry slushies and you’ll know what I mean…)