Tag Archive "museum-of-modern-art"

Typography at MoMA

The clearest possible introduction to the thinking behind new typefaces is part of a larger exhibition, Standard Deviations: Types and Families in Contemporary Design, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (through January 30, 2012), but the typography section works perfectly well on its own. Featuring the recent acquisition of twenty-three digital typefaces – a first for MoMA’s design department -  this sub-section of the exhibition is the most lucid and informative introduction to design thinking I’ve seen at the museum. It’s an introduction to typography primarily for readers, rather than designers.

Alex Da Corte at MoMA, AIR’s free studios, Gallery 339′s Japan relief, Butch Cordora’s DVD and more news!

Alex DaCorte continues his razzle-dazzle art career when MoMA screens a video of his next week, Thursday, April 14. (Read Annette Monnier’s thoughtful review of Alex’s recent 2-venue show at Bodega and Extra Extra.) He’s one of 10 artists who were invited to create video responses to songs on Leonard Cohen’s 10-song album New Skin for the Old Ceremony, one song per artist.

Picasso, Music and Negative Space; the Guitars at MoMA

Picasso Guitars 1912-1914, on view at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) through June 6, 2011, is an intense and thrilling experience for anyone concerned with art and visual thinking in the early 20th Century. What it reveals, at least to someone who has worked and thought in three dimensions, are Picasso’s first, profound experiments with one of the key concepts of Twentieth Century plastic arts: negative space. Moreover, the exhibition indicates that like abstraction, for which music was both inspiration and justification, Picasso’s interest in negative space grew out of thinking about music; not musical form and language, but ... More » »

Museum Musings: Lobby Art and Paula Hayes’ Fantastical Gardens at MoMA

I’ve been thinking for a while about Lobby Art – art in museum lobbies, that is. Not all museums feature Lobby Art; for some, such as the Guggenheim, the Philadelphia Museum of Art or the Art Institute of Chicago, the architecture suffices to create an ambiance for the entry areas, although certain artists, notably Jenny Holzer and Rebecca Horn, have taken on the Guggenheim’s central void to spectacular effect, and one might consider the Tate Modern’s  Turbine Hall as the apotheosis of artist project lobbies.

“Matisse; Radical Invention 1913-17″ at MoMA

Matisse; Radical Invention 1913-17 at the Museum of Modern Art through Oct. 11 is not for those take the artist at his word that a painting should be like a good armchair: familiar and comfortable, presumably. Rather it’s for those who like a challenge and find that almost a century later some of his work is still unsettling and disturbing; paintings such as the Portrait of Yvonne Landsberg (1914, Philadelphia Museum of Art) defined entirely by scratched lines which radiate like a force field around a sitter who merges with her chair; or the Portrait of Olga Merson (1911, Museum ... More » »

Bauhaus Studies

Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman’s Bauhaus 1919-1933; Workshops for modernity (2009, Museum of Modern Art, New York, ISBN 978-0-87070-758-2), the catalog for MoMA’s exhibition of the same name, would serve as an excellent introduction to the Bauhaus for a serious scholarly or general audience.  The book, as did the exhibition, addresses the Bauhaus primarily as an educational institution, rejecting common usage of the term to describe a style, often associated with modernism in general.

More Museum Studies; Artists as Docents

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam with banner for For the Love of God Damian Hirst, November – December, 2008 I arrived in Amsterdam on Dec. 14 on an overnight flight, took a nap and awoke to the suggestion from my friend, Barbara that we go to the Rijksmuseum for the last day of an exhibition. The work in question was For the Love of God, Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull along with a small room of paintings that Hirst selected from the museum’s collection.

Three Beautiful Books

Three especially beautiful volumes are sitting on my desk at the moment, all of which would make perfect holiday gifts for an artist or art lover. Two are exhibition catalogs which have interest well beyond their respective exhibitions; the third, a wild card, is an unusual science book from Harvard University Press. Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait (1907), oil on canvas, 19 3/4 x 18 in., Narodni Gallery, Prague. This painting is the subject of an article by Leo Steinberg, published for the first time in Cubist Picasso. Cubist Picasso (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux and Flammarion, SA, 2007 ... More » »

Beyond the White Cube: Martin Puryear at the National Gallery of Art

Martin Puryear Self (1978) stained and painted red cedar and mahogany, 69 x 48 x 25″, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Museum purchase in memory of Elinor Ashton, © Martin Puryear When Brian O’Doherty famously described the white cube that is the setting for much contemporary art it was to critique its ideology, the illusion it fosters that the art it encloses is separate from all life outside, separate from history, society, labor, commerce. But the white cube is also an architectural space and that profoundly affects the art as well. This was dramatically brought home when I saw the Martin ... More » »

Emphasis on Experience: Richter and Serra

By Daniel Payavis With Richard Serra’s retrospective exhibition (it closed Sept. 10) at the Museum of Modern Art (see post) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Notations: Kiefer, Polke, Richter currently up (see Look! video here), I have had ample opportunity to ponder the work of both Richter and Serra, certainly two of the most significant artists in the last thirty years. Their names reach out as far into the realm of common knowledge as contemporary artists’ names go; their work maintains international interest, yet it would seem that this is as similar as the two artists get. After all, ... More » »