MoMA Highlights [antikvár]

Introduction hat is The Muséum of Modem Art? At first glance, this seems like a Jrelatively straightforward question. But the answer is neither simple nor straightforward, and any attempt to answer it almost immediately reveals a complex institution that, from its inception, has engendered a variety of mean-ings. For some, the Muséum is a cherished place, a sanctuary in the heart of midtown Manhattan. For others, it is an idea represented by its collection and amplified by its exhibition program. For still others, the Muséum is a laboratory of learning, a place where the most challenging and difficult art of our time can be measured against the achievements of the immediate past. The Muséum of Modem Art is, of course, ail of this and more. Yet, in 1929, its founders dreamed, and its friends, trustées, and staff have dreamed since, that its multiple meanings and potential would ultimately be resolved into some final, fully formed equilibrium. In 1939, for instance, in his préfacé to the catalogue of the Museum's tenth anniversary exhibition, the Museum's président, A. Conger Goodyear, proudly proclaimed that the institution had finally reached maturity. As we now realize, in spite of the achievements of the Museum's initial years, he could not have anticipated the challenges to come. The Muséum was still at the beginning of an adventure, an évolution that continues to unfold more than half a century later. At the âge of ten the Muséum was (and at seven times ten moves onward as) an exploratory enterprise whose parameters and possibilities remain open. From small temporary quarters at 730 Fifth Avenue to its current building occupying almost half a city block at 11 West 53 Street, from a single curatorial department to seven (six of which are collecting departments), and from a program without a permanent collection to a collection of over 100,000 objects, The Muséum of Modem Art has grown, changed, and rethought itself on a regular basis. In doing so, it has undergone six major architectural expansions and rénovations since the completion of its first building in 1939 and has now embarked on another. This virtually continuous process of physical growth reflects the institution^ ongoing efforts to honor its own changing programmatic and intellectual needs by constantly adjusting, and frequently rethinking, the topography of its space. Each évolution of the Muséum has opened up the possibility for the next itération of the institution, creating a kind of permanent self-renewing debate within The Muséum of Modem Art about its future as well as its relationship to the past. With each change has come new expectations and challenges for the Muséum, and this is especially true today as the Muséum stands at the threshold of a new millennium. The Muséum of Modem Art is predicated on a relatively simple proposition, that the art of our time—modem art—is as vital and important as the art of the past. A corollary of this proposition is that the aesthetic and intellectual interests that shape modem art can be seen in médiums as différent as painting and sculpture, film and video, photography, architecture and design, prints and illustrated books, and drawings—the current curatorial departments of the Muséum. From the outset, The Muséum of Modem Art has been a laboratory for the study of the ways in which modernity has manifested itself in the visual arts. There has been, of course, and there will continue to be, a great deal of debate over what is actually meant by the term modem. Does it connote a moment in time, an idea, or a particular set of values? Whatever définition is favored, it seems clear that any discussion of the concept must take into account the rôle The