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the moma collection
location
museum of modern art, nyc
date
may 17, 2023
the collection:
floor 2 - 1970s to present
floor 4 - 1940s to 1970s
floor 5 - 1880s to 1940s
Martha Rosler - Red Stripe Kitchen, from the series 'House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home,' 1967-72
Martha Rosler's collages are so perfectly crafted to emphasize the juxtaposition of war and domestic life. These forms of visual protest against the Vietnam War reference the phrase, "living room war," which was used to characterize the Vietnam War's in-depth television coverage.
Henri Matisse - The Swimming Pool, 1952
When Matisse said "I will make myself my own pool" after a sunny day in Cannes, he really meant it. After asking his secretary to line the walls of his dining room with paper, the 83-year-old Matisse applied his cutouts of divers, swimmers, and sea creatures to the papered wall. This work is considered his only site-specific piece, where Matisse saw the similarities between the fluidity of water and the pliability of the paper.
James Rosenquist - F-111, 1964-65
'F-111,' believe it or not, is painted on the side of an 86-foot-long F-111 fighter bomber plane, one of the most sophisticated weapons used by the U.S. in the Vietnam War. Rosenquist used the overlay of consumer culture and billboard advertisements to camouflage the "Vietnam death machine" lying underneath. The Pop Art movement gave Rosenquist the ability to repurpose recognizable images and brands by giving this foreign, military object a recognizable and familiar feeling.
William Eggleston - Greenwood, Mississippi, 1973
Classic William Eggleston, widely considered the father of color photography.
Regina Silveira - Enigma 4, 1981
I've never seen this artist before, but it was immediately intriguing to me because I love image manipulation and optical illusions. A Brazilian artist working under the military dictatorship, her process apparently consisted of projecting photograms of certain shapes and images onto another object, like a form of shadow painting.
François Morellet
- Random Distribution of 40.000 Squares
Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a
Telephone Directory, 50% Blue, 50% Red, 1960
Aside from the title, the visual presentation of this work was immediately intriguing to me. Morellet divided the canvas into a grid of 40,000 squares, then instructed his wife and sons to read numbers from the phone book out loud. Moving from the top left corner of the canvas to the bottom right, filled in a square blue for each even number and filled in red for each odd one.
Helen Frankenthaler - Jacob's Ladder, 1957
I wrote my modern art history final paper on this painting, so I should be able to have a lot to say about it. I have so much respect for Helen Frankenthaler's ability to make great art while at the time under the shadow of her male artist counterparts. Her "soak-stain" technique's resemblance to Pollock's drip technique caused her worked to be observed alongside Pollock. Even MoMA's description plaque begins: "Taking up the drip technique developed by Jackson Pollock..." Even as I bring up her unfortunate juxtaposition to Pollock, that may still contribute to her overshadowed career, but that is how tricky and irreversible the canon of art can make certain artists' legacies.
Detail: Helen Frankenthaler - Jacob's Ladder, 1957
The title 'Jacob's Ladder' references the Biblical story of a divine ladder reaching from Earth into heaven. Frankenthaler chose this title after two lines emerged in the center of the canvas, resembling a ladder. The canvas has a clear gravitational pull, with its earthy reds and greens grounding the abstraction, while the light pinks and whites float up to the canvas's blank sky.
Detail: Helen Frankenthaler - Jacob's Ladder, 1957
Frankenthaler's technique consisted of thinning her paints and pouring them onto the large, unprimed canvas, lying on the floor of her studio. The paints pooled and spread, soaking through the canvas and intertwining with the fabric, as opposed to sitting on its surface.
I also appreciate her neat signature and date, not many artists do it that beautifully.
Jasper Johns - Target with Four Faces, 1955
Johns uses the familiar target shape and adds four plaster-cast faces of the same model over the course of multiple months, arranged in no particular way. There is a small wooden flap over the faces that offers the option of hiding these slightly unsettling faces. This fusion of painting and sculpture is made of a mixture of beeswax and pigment on canvas.
Robert Rauschenberg - Bed, 1955
My mom laughed at me when we were visiting the MoMA because when I noticed this from across the room, I gasped and dragged her over to see it. Rauschenberg is one of my favorites, so seeing this work in person for the first time was pretty exciting. In my art history class, my teacher brought up the rumor that Rauschenberg stole this blanket from someone else because he ran out of canvas. Not sure if that's true.
Jasper Johns - Flag, 1954
Johns uses the American flag as just a symbol or shape to paint, taking away the artist's need to express any of their own ideas through shape and color. Johns presents the clear feelings and ideas we symbolically associate with the flag, while at the same time diminishing the significance of the flag's symbols. Newspaper clippings can be seen underneath the encaustic mixture of wax and pigment, alluding to the extensive and significant history of thought behind the singular representation of America. Also, notice there are only 48 stars on the flag, as Johns created this work before Hawaii and Alaska gained statehood.
Detail: Jasper Johns - Flag, 1954
Detail of newspaper base underneath the encaustic.
Claes Oldenburg - Two Cheeseburgers, 1962
Oldenburg is probably my number one favorite artist from this period of modern art. His work consists of strange replications of objects-- many of which are food-- and turns them into permanent objects made of varying materials. The satire of his art mixes with the viewer's genuine contentment and comfortability when confronted with such a familiar subject.
Marisol - The Family, 1962
Venezuelan artist Marisol Escobar, known professionally as Marisol, presents a realistic, matriarchal figure in her specific, cubist sculptural style. Instead of a perfectly polished and glamorous family portrait, like many presentations of subjects in Pop art, this family comes across quite candidly by being casually unprepared. Marisol's arrangement was based on a family photograph that she found in her studio, left from a previous resident. Marisol assembled this work by gathering found, on-hand objects, including a pair of doors and a doorknob. Everyday materials to represent everyday lives.
Kate Millett - Piano & Stool, 1965
I've only heard of Kate Millett as a feminist writer, and had no idea she had works of art like this. I am immediately obsessed.
Andy Warhol - Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962
Jiro Takamatsu - Slack of Net, 1969
Bruce Nauman - Slow Angle Walk, 1968
David Lamelas - Corner Piece, 1966
At first glance, Corner Piece appears as a part of the gallery's architecture, when it actuality it is
Meret Oppenheim - Object (Fur Teacup), 1936
Meret Oppenheim's Fur Teacup is the epitome of Surrealist objects. It's uncomfortable and textural. Oppenheim covered an ordinary teacup and saucer set in gazelle fur, altering completely this everyday household object.
František Kupka - Mme Kupka Among Verticals, 1910-11
Kazimir Malevich
- Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918
This is one of those typical works of modern art that's easy to make fun of, because anyone can do it and it contains arguably no substance. But when Russian Avant-Garde artist Kazimir Malevich created this in 1918, it was one of the most radical paintings of its time. Containing no reference to the outside world, the composition plays on optical illusion, presenting a floating, tilted square inside a blank canvas. In actuality, the inner square is slightly asymmetrical. Malevich is the creator of an art theory called Suprematism, to signify “the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts.”
Andrew Norman Wilson
- Workers Leaving the Googleplex, 2022
Wilson investigates Google's strange and secretive corporate policies in his first-hand account of an experience he had while working as a contractor for Google in 2007. It's quite a long and complicated story, which he tells extensively in this 11 minute video on a loop. I recommend reading the entire story on the moma collection page: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/401162
Howardina Pindell - Free, White and 21, 1980
This conceptual video work by Howardina Pindell is a straight-forward account of the artist's first-hand experiences with racism. The title 'Free, White and 21' references Pindell's age of 21 when the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. She highlights the contrasting experiences of black vs. white women in America, adorning whiteface and cutting between herself and the white woman character. The film includes Pindell peeling translucent film off of her face after discussing her racist encounters throughout her lifetime.
Senga Nengudi - RSVP I, 1977/2003
Senga Nengudi fills worn, dark-hued pantyhose with bags of sand to create her work 'RSVP.' This installation piece was created with the intention of having a performative component to the work. Nengudi and other guest dancers have performed choreographed dances with the objects, entangling their limbs with the stretchy material. This work grew out of the artist's personal experience with her first pregnancy and the broader, shared experiences of being a mother and woman of color. The nylon mesh relates to the elasticity of the human body, and its inability to maintain its same, original shape.
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