2/9/02

MOMA Queens: a stroke of genius

The Temporary-Contemporary provided for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles by Frank Gehry during Pontus Hulten’s great reign as Director was a brilliant formula to keep things rolling while major works were in progress. Now the Museum of Modern Art, New York has solved a similar problem while the 53rd Street Manhattan improvements are in full swing. Not of course, in Manhattan, but across the East River, at Queens. Nor forever, it is said, but until 2005. But such is the success of the ‘temporary’ galleries under their director Glenn Lowry that the queues suggest a successful venture that will succeed and succeed well beyond the date prescribed for closure. The opening exhibitions included one on classic cars; Tempo, a show about time as theme; plus historic photographic documentation by Rudy Burckhardt of the locality in the l940s. In addition, it features 75 works that have appeared on the world’s most famous postcards — including Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, Pollock’s One, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, and Dali’s The Resistance of Memory. As with other ‘satellite museums’, such as Tate Liverpool and now Manchester’s Imperial War Museum North, the plumbing of existing central archives creatively offers a useful and popular solution to the constrictions of space. MOMA Queens surely has a longer future, and one not just governed by real estate calculations. Acquired originally for $5 million, and with a conversion cost of $30 million, MOMA has acquired 25,000 square feet of exhibition space and 135,000 square feet for workshops, shop, library and café, along with storage in the basement — solving a major long-term problem. So, how temporary, contemporary?