Mixed Mediums: An Interdisciplinary Approach to MoMA’s Collection
At The Museum of Modern Art there are countless ways to explore not just our rich collection, but the history of modern art as well. For that reason, the Museum’s collection galleries are frequently reinstalled in order to feature a wide range of artwork in various configurations. But over the past several weeks, there has been an especially high volume of new activity in these galleries. As MoMA prepares to expand its gallery space in 2019, there will also be an expansion in scope: The new gallery displays will bring together works from all six of MoMA’s curatorial departments. This extensive, multimedia curatorial collaboration will bring even more variety into the Museum’s galleries, putting more emphasis on works from the collection that are infrequently exhibited, giving visitors opportunities to encounter some lesser-known artists and artworks.
An expansion project on such a massive scale presents many challenges as well. For the duration of the construction phase, MoMA’s galleries first have to shrink before they can grow. Many galleries were recently affected by architectural changes brought on by pre-construction activity. These re-installations act also as an experiment in preparation for the expansion initiative.
In the spirit of cross-departmental collaboration, the newly reinstalled Dada gallery, for example, presents a configuration of works made by Dada artists who experimented with a variety of methods and materials throughout their careers. Art history, after all, doesn’t happen in medium-specific ways; a prime example of this is the artistic practice of Marcel Duchamp, who started his career as a painter in the early 1910s, but was soon frustrated by the limitations posed by two-dimensional art. He famously dismissed what he referred to as “retinal” art, which was mainly concerned with pleasing the eye of the viewer. Instead, he began to present what he termed “Readymades” — mass-produced, everyday objects that he removed from their usual context and designated as works of art. On view in the Dada gallery are several of Duchamp’s Readymades, including Fresh Widow (1920), a miniature version of a traditional French window, and Bicycle Wheel (1951), a bicycle wheel mounted on a kitchen stool.
But Duchamp’s restless experimentation with materials and mediums did not stop there. In addition to two paintings (from 1912 and 1914) and a series of Readymades, Museum visitors can now also explore Duchamp’s 1926 breakthrough experimental film and quasi-palindrome Anémic Cinema. This seven-minute-long silent film consists of a series of interchanging rotating spirals juxtaposed with verbal puns written on disks. The disks spin slowly enough that the spectator can read the puns inscribed on them, creating a hypnotic linkage between two modes of representation: the verbal and the optical. Made in collaboration with Man Ray and cinematographer Marc Allégret in the former’s studio, this optical experiment was signed by Duchamp with the name of his female alter ego, Rrose Sélavy.
One of the most noticeable additions to the fifth floor is a monographic display of the work by the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico. MoMA’s rich collection of paintings by de Chirico was largely donated by longtime trustee and curator James Thrall Soby (1906–1979), who was also appointed assistant director of the Museum and director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture in 1943. His expansive collection of modern art — and his generous support of the Museum — specifically inspired the installation of this gallery. De Chirico’s eerie cityscapes and still lifes, often characterized by deep shadows and strong geometric lines and shapes, are filled with a sense of melancholy and evocative mystery. The works on view in this gallery come from his self-described “metaphysical” period, dating from 1909 to 1919. In an attempt to explore what lies beyond the physical world, de Chirico developed a dreamlike visual language that had far-reaching influence — especially on the Surrealists in the 1920s.
However, Giorgio de Chirico is not the only subject of a new monographic presentation. There is also now a spacious gallery that is divided into two smaller ones, one of which is solely devoted to the Hungarian-born artist László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946).
In 1923, Moholy-Nagy was appointed at the Bauhaus, the German school of art and architecture that was founded in Weimar in 1919. While there, he promoted technology-integration and experimentation with modern materials, marking a new era for the school as it began shifting away from its focus on Expressionist painting. Both his Bauhaus teaching and his highly innovative art had a tremendous influence on younger generations of artists. The works in this gallery represent the wide range of artistic mediums that were employed by Moholy-Nagy throughout his career, with paintings, a film, and a portfolio of lithographs and photographs. Moholy-Nagy was a firm believer that photography wasn’t just a documentation tool — it could be used as a means of artistic expression. He also thought photography should be treated as an experimental medium with limitless possibilities and no fixed rules or conventions.
All of these changes signal MoMA’s exciting new trajectory, with a renewed focus on presenting artists’ work from a range of different perspectives, and the critical importance of viewing modern art history across disciplines.
