MoMA - culture in New York? (Museum of Modern Art)

Member Name: peel.rebekah

Product:	Museum of Modern Art
Date:	27/03/01 (293 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: n/a

Disadvantages: n/a

When the Museum of Modern Art opened in 1929, it was viewed as an experimental operation: Previous to this, It was almost impossible to view late nineteenth and twentieth century art works, let alone the work of a LIVING artist. Museums were still considered to be the indulgence of the elite and the cultured; they were still sober institutions that reveled in history and pomp.

Three art collectors brought this Museum into being: Lillie P. Bliss, Mrs Cornelius J. Sullivan and Mrs John D. Rockefeller Jr. All of these women had progressive and contemporary tastes, and the influence and energy to challenge conservative traditions. Bliss was an avid collector of Post-Impressionist work, Sullivan was rather fond of investing in up and coming artist and Rockefeller was highly influenced by European art museums during her youth. Rockefeller and Bliss met in 1928 while touring in Egypt, where they began discussing seriously the need for a modern art museum in America; they joined with Sullivan on their return to the States. They propositioned the president of The Allbright Art Gallery, A. Goodyear, and the first plans of the museum were put into motion.

During its first few years, the museum experimented with exhibitions and programs, slowly beginning to build its permanent collection: Edward Hopper, Aristide Maillol, Dufy and Brancusi were among the first acquisitions. In 1935 Rockefeller boosted the collection with a large donation of 181 works - specifying that any one of the paintings she was donating could be exchanged or sold to further the permanent collection. In 1939, a very generous donation was made by Mrs Simon Guggenheim - Picasso's Girl before a mirror, and Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy - and in 1939, the museum acquired one of its most historically influential piece - Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

The museum found its permanent home in 1939, in a building designed in the'International Style' (a six s
tory building, constructed from aluminum and Thermolux), by Philip L. Goodwin and Edward D. Stone. Within two years of the new premises opening, America was well and truely involved in the second world war: The museum supported the war effort by holding exhibitions, special programs, films and posters for the government, the armed forces and later, veterans. Post-war, the American Abstract Expressionism movement began to grow and influence Europe: The museum decided to to shift their focus to this market, acquiring works by Pollock, Motherwell, Gorky and Rothko.

The museum was also one of the first to hold a photography exhibition and open a photographic department - 1940. The film department benefited greatly from the donations of Stanley Kubrick (at the time a young director - he often came to the museum's screenings) and Joseph Levine.

In 1958, a serious fire caused considerable damage to the museum and its collection: Two Monet's (one being one of the Water Lilies paintings) were lost, and so was a Candido Portinari mural. There was also considerable smoke damage to Pollock's No. 1, but it was successfully restored at a later date.

There were problems again in 1981, when the museum had to hand back Picasso's masterpiece Guernica, and its preliminary studies to Spain; they had been on an extended loan, from Picasso, since 1939. After the fall of the Franco regime, Picasso's heirs decided that the pieces should be returned to Spain, and Guernica remains in The Prado, Madrid, to this day.

Other paintings and sculptures you can view at the Museum of Modern Art:

Cubism (or rather Braque and Picasso): Picasso - Woman Dressing Her Hair, Two Nudes, Boy Leading a Horse and The Kitchen. Braque - Road near L?Estaque and Soda.

Futurists: Umberto Boccioni - States of Mind and the superb Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913 - bronze). Gino Severini - Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin. Carlo
Carra - Funeral of the Anarchist Galli.

The Dada and Surrealist movements are well documented: Paul Delvaux - Phases of the Moon. Rene Magritte - The Menaced Assasin and The False Mirror (a comment on inner vision; the painting is of a cloudscape within the pupil of an eye). Salvador Dali - The Persistence of Memory - probably the most well known of his works, this is of a bleak, trompe l'oeil landscape, melting watches and scurrying ants. Joan Miro - Dutch Interior and The Birth of the World. Giorgio de Chirico - The Seer. Marcel Duchamp - Bicycle Wheel and Fresh Widow. Man Ray - Cadeau, this is the iron with thirteen nails attached to the base.

Abstract Expressionism: Franz Kline - Painting No.2. Mark Rothko - Magenta, Black, Green on Orange and Red, Brown and Black (my absolute favourite Rothko piece). Hans Hofman - Cathedral and Memoria in Aeternum. Ad Reinhardt - Abstract painting, Red and Number 107. Jackson Pollock - One, Echo and Full Fathom Five.

Also within the permanent collection are plenty of works by Georgia O'keeffe, Joseph Cornell, Andrew Wyeth's spectacular painting - Christina's World, Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Odilon Redon's always perturbing - Spider.

The museum also houses a collection of design; furniture, textiles, cutlery etc. This is a truely wonderful collection, highlights are: Pinin Farina - The Cisitalia 202 GT (the first car to have entered the collection of any art gallery), designs by Frank Lloyd Wright, a cup and saucer designed by Josiah Wedgwood, a vase by Louis Comfort Tiffany (son of the founder of the New York jewelry store), audio designs from Jakob Jensen and my favourite (probably because I have one), David Gammon?s Transcriptor Turntable.

The photography department is excellent, it is one of the largest collections in the museum but unfortunately only a small selection are on public display. The collection sta
rted soon after the museum's foundation with a photograph by Walker Evans; it continues through the decades with work from William Henry Fox Talbot, Paul Strand, Man Ray, Ralph Steiner and Edward Weston. More recent acquisitions have been from William Eggleston, Michael Schmidt, Thomas Struth and Cindy Sherman.

* General Information

This is a VERY, VERY busy museum (there, I warned you), so the MoMA offers you an alternative way of viewing its permanent collection and current exhibitions: By reservation for a private, guided tour an hour before normal opening times (at the end of the opinion), or on Mondays, after hours, from 6.00 - 7.00 pm, followed by a wine tasting session from 7.00 - 8.00 pm. These are expensive - $36 and $39, respectively.

A self guided tour (I can highly recommend this), is $3.25 on top of the entrance price.

The museum has two venues for eating: The Sette MoMA is an seriously overpriced contemporary Italian restaurant, but there is the added benefits of live Jazz on Thursdays and Saturdays, from 6.00 - 10.00pm. The Cafe/etc. is the more innovative of the two; you can sip your cafe lattes while surrounded by video and film installations, the book shop is also situated here.

All programs and services are completely free to special needs visitors, wheelchairs and walking frames are provided by the museum.

MoMA: 11, West 53 Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue.
Opening times: Thursday to Tuesday, 10.30 - 5.45pm.
Price: $10.00
Public Transport: Bus - M1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Subway - E and F.
Website: www. moma.org

Summary: