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Being New York City, there could not be an event without
a protest. A few people paraded outside carrying 'BURN MOMA' signs,
all dressed in black with their faces covered.
MoMA was the first museum dedicated to Modern Art. The museum was
founded by Abby A. Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan
and others: wealthy, cultured women who saw the need to house the
works of the modern art movement. It was 1929 when MoMA began as
a six-room rented space at the corner of 57th and Fifth Avenue.
Later it moved to the present site, at that time a townhouse on
53rd Street; later Philip L. Goodwin and ED Stone designed a new
museum at this location. In the 1950s, Philip Johnson designed expansions,
and in the 1980s a west wing designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates
was added. In 1995 with the acquisition of the Dorset Hotel, next
door, the museum site grew to its current size. Director Glenn Lowry
worked with his well-connected board, the City and the State of
New York to amass million of dollars for the reconstructions. The
museum began its reconstruction in August 2001.
Yoshio Taniguchi won the competition to rebuild MoMA. First, ten
architects were invited to make proposals; the 1997 'Toward the
New Museum of Modern Art' exhibition displayed their submissions.
From this group, Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron from Switzerland
and Bernard Tschumi from the US were the other two finalists. For
Yoshio Taniguchi, this was his first international project outside
Japan. His other museum projects are the Toyota Municipal Museum
of Art, the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art,
the Shiseido Art Museum, Higashiyama Kaii Gallery in Nagano, the
Centennial Hall in the Kyoto National Museum, the Gallery of Horyuji
Treasures at the Tokyo National Museum, The Ken Domon Museum of
Photography in Sakata, and the Higashiyama Kaii Museum in Sakaide.
His environment-friendly and non-imposing structures are designed
to fit seamlessly with the surroundings; they complement the artworks
and enhance the viewer's perspective. He states ‘The primary
objective in the design of a museum is to create an ideal environment
for the interaction of people and art' and this is certainly the
case with the new MoMA.
While MoMA was being reconstructed its collections became travelling
exhibitions. Some went overseas (for example, 'Modern Means: Continuity
and Change in Art, 1880 to Now', which ran from 28 April –
1 August 2004 at the Mori Art Museum, Japan, but most were exhibited
at a temporarily-created museum in Queens, New York. MoMA Queens,
a one-floor gallery space, was well attended from the start. Its
exhibitions included ‘Matisse Picasso', a comparison of the
works by the two masters who learned from each other, the 'Max Beckmann'
exhibition in 2003 and ‘AUTObodies: speed, sport, transport'
in 2002, among others.
The design of the new MoMA is elegant. Spacious galleries invite
the public and embrace all the beloved favourites. Six large floors
of space display works as small as Frida Kahlo's 'Self-Portrait
with Cropped Hair', 15 3/4 x 11 inches to James Rosenquist's
enormous 'F-111', 10 x 86 feet. The walls are in the same shade
of unifying off-white, and the floors are wooden to afford the visitors
more comfort.
Entering on 53rd Street, the visitor is drawn towards the solitary
figure of Balzac by Rodin, which imposingly stands in front of the
Sculpture Garden, a much-missed outdoor haven in the city. Up one
short flight of steps is the huge atrium, where the Barnett Newman
25-foot steel ‘Broken Obelisk' sculpture dominates the
space. Beyond is Claude Monet's 'Water Lilies', c.1920, painted
in 3 sections that now hang side by side as the artist wished. Previously
MoMA did not have a large enough wall, and they were displayed in
a semi-circle. However, this is one of the few unsuccessful relocations.
The new space is too large and diminishes this ravishing painting
and even the colours seem dull and dark.
Go straight to the fifth floor if you want to see the most important
of MoMA's holdings. Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' is
here, and his 'Portrait of Joseph Roulin'. Pablo Picasso's 'Les
Demoiselles D'Avignon', and his 'Boy Leading a Horse' stand
out. Many works by Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, Rousseau, Munch,
Derain, Braque, Degas and others are all displayed here. One gallery
is devoted to Matisse.
The bronze 'Backs' by Matisse are in another gallery, not together,
but rather facing each other on opposite sides of the room. It was
easier when they were side by side as previously presented in the
Sculpture Garden to visually compare the progression from realism
to abstraction.
It was decided that the reinstallation should group art movements
together in galleries, but there are no doors and through wide openings
the cross-pollination of a particular era is illustrated. For example,
Russian Constructivism and Dadaism overlap around the time of World
War I, and it is interesting to see the juxtaposition of Mondrian,
Miró, Brancusi and Duchamp - the latter two were the best
of friends but their polarisation of ideas is clear when Brancusi
spent months working on his sculptures, yet nearby is Duchamp's
bicycle wheel that he set upon a block and declared instant sculpture.
Next come the Surrealistic works. A gallery is dedicated to the
Futurists, of which MoMA has the largest collection outside of Italy.
The galleries are all slightly different sizes to give variety,
and to keep the specific art phases in place. The architect proposed
the spaces and the director and curators worked out how to fit the
art to the spaces. Each gallery is named, and each required a hefty
donation, the most generous donors being assigned the largest galleries.
The curators had only two months to make the installations but,
knowing it would be an impossible task, they began making preparations
18 months ahead. To check on the sculptures, life-size cardboard
models were tried in various positions in the temporary facility.
Large-scale models of the galleries were made and scale-size paintings
were moved around. Thus, very few alterations had to be made when
the installation began in September 2004. Of about 30 galleries,
only two had to be completely rethought.
Traditionally MoMA kept the labels spare and as unobtrusive as
possible. In the hiatus they decided to loosen up, and to put some
paragraphs of explanation beside the works. But by the time this
was decided, there was time only to do a few important ones. In
future everything may have longer labels.
'The Dance' by Matisse has caused some controversy by being installed
at the top of a staircase. However, the unstable setting accentuates
its essential movement. Also, the curators had precedent to call
on. This is a study for the painting in the Hermitage, and used
to hang over the staircase of a Russian home.
Moving down from fifth to fourth floors, there is a shift from
Paris to New York, and to the period after World War II. Here are
the great Jackson Pollocks, Barnett Newman's huge red 'Vir Heroicus
Sublimis', Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Willem
de Kooning's 'Woman I'. Around 1955, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg,
Cy Twombly are represented. The museum was already strong in Johns,
but has recently added one of his greatest works, 'Diver', 1962-63,
a charcoal drawing mounted on canvas which has foot-prints on the
top and hand-prints at the centre and bottom (looking like a skull),
it takes the viewer to the depths of the self-diving to death. It
is said to pay homage to the poet Hart Crane, who dived to his death
from a ship.
So many movements began in the 1960s. The International Movement
introduces Frank Stella and Yves Klein. Also Pop, dominated by Andy
Warhol's 'Marilyn' and his wall of Campbell's Soup Cans,
plus Roy Lichtenstein, Ruscha, Rosenquist, Helen Frankenthaler,
and a fine Romare Bearden collage. There is a Conceptual gallery
(John Baldessari's enigmatic writing) and Minimalism at the end
of the 1960s, with Kenneth Noland and Donald Judd. One of the Op
artists is Bridget Riley. MoMA has been criticised for not including
many women artists but the museum is trying to catch up now with
new purchases.
The third floor is for architecture and design, drawings, photography
and special exhibitions. There exists such incredible depth in the
collection of drawings and prints, that during the first year there
will be three changing instalments. One can see many types of chairs,
furniture, Vincent HRD Series C Black Shadow Motorcycle, the sleek
Cisitalia 202 GT Car, MTA New York Subway Signs, and of course the
1945 Bell 47D1 Helicopter.
Apart from the atrium the whole second floor is for Contemporary
work, most of which is also newly acquired. The old MoMA had very
little room to show such pieces, some of which are quite large,
but here the 22 feet ceilings and open floor provide an enormous
space. In future, as it becomes clear which movements and artists
are most important, this floor will also be divided into galleries.
The permanent Contemporary collection, which includes the 1970s
to the present, will rotate every nine months, because the curators
want to be less selective and show as much new art as possible.
The 1970s saw a challenging of the status quo, and rejection of
anything which smacked of tradition in art (such as paint brushes).
A piece from 1974 is 'Bingo' by Gordon Matta-Clark, who carved out
bits of extant buildings (sometimes the work of art was the building
minus a piece he removed). For 'Bingo' he took sections from a house
in Niagara Falls (like a Bingo game), and reassembled three of eight
in its present configuration.
A recently purchased Rachel Whiteread white plaster piece depicting
the air in a room is shown. Sometimes, she makes a cast of a real
room, for this she specially built a generic room in her studio
(in Berlin at the time). Matthew Barney is represented with 'The
Cabinet of Baby Fay La Foe', 2000. The sculpture on glass 'Modernity,
Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely' by Josiah McElheny, a
display of Mirrored blown glass, aluminium, in a mirrored wall box
with a two-way mirror at the front, is a crowd pleaser.
The sixth floor will be for temporary exhibitions. At present,
the space is hardly delineated with walls, and thus the huge 'F-111'
by Rosenquist (made up of 23 sections) and Ellsworth Kelly's 'Sculpture
for a Large Wall', are installed and look wonderful. But after an
initial period these will be removed to storage, because surprisingly
they will not fit anywhere else (what a shame the walls of the atrium
are not long enough). Also here are a few other large pieces, Chuck
Close's 'Self Portrait', Alex Katz' 'Lawn Party' and Francis
Bacon's 'Triptych', and some extraordinary photographs taken by
German artist Michael Wesely while MoMA was reconstructed.
Besides the few shortcomings, which can be solved in the future,
the museum is completely transformed. The space, the arrangement
of the galleries and connecting hallways with views through internal
and external windows to the atrium, the Sculpture Garden and parts
of NYC, gives the visitor an unforgettable experience, as if one
was part of a painting or a play, the architecture in a sense is
truly transparent, and in giving the artwork centre stage, it becomes
a work of art. 'If MoMA is the cup and the artwork is the tea, I
want people to say how good the tea is and not how nice the cup
is' said Yoshio Taniguchi recently in an interview.
Yes, Manhattan is Modern again.
Miguel Benavides
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