The Museum of Modern Art announces the release of a digital archive of extraordinary importance for historians, students, artists, and anyone concerned with modern and contemporary art: a comprehensive account of the Museum’s exhibitions from its founding, in 1929, to today. This new digital archive, which will continue to grow as materials become available, is now accessible on the Museum’s web site, moma.org/history.
Providing an unparalleled history of the presentation of modern and contemporary art on a widely available platform, the project features over 3,500 exhibitions, illustrated by primary documents such as installation photographs, press releases, checklists, and catalogues, as well as lists of included artists. By making these unique resources available at no charge, the Exhibition History digital archive directly aligns with the Museum’s mission of encouraging an ever-deeper understanding of modern and contemporary art and fostering scholarship.
Funding for the processing of The Museum of Modern Art exhibition records was generously provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.
Archives Processing Project
In 2014 The Museum of Modern Art Archives, with the support of the Leon Levy Foundation, began a project to fully describe, preserve, and open to the public MoMA’s curatorial and registrar exhibition files. As of fall 2016, records for exhibitions from 1929 through 1989 will be available, and the Leon Levy project staff are continuing to work on exhibition records from 1990 through 2000, which are expected to be completed and opened to the public in 2019. Finding aids to the available records can be found on our holdings page. Work from this project, including index data, checklists, and press release links, has been integrated into MoMA’s exhibition history pages.