MoMA2000
Making Choices
Cycle II (1920-1960)
The second cycle of MoMA2000, Making Choices will run
from March 16, 2000 to September 26, 2000. It will focus on the
period between 1920 and 1960, when, amid considerable social and
political turmoil, original visions of modem art were reconsidered
and a variety of competing alternatives put forward. Organized
according to principles of juxtaposition or montage of discrete
elements, the exhibitions' individual installations will be devoted
to particular artistic episodes, disputes, themes, traditions,
programs, formal devices, or bodies of work. Some will concentrate
on a single medium or moment; others will span the century, drawing
on works from virtually every one of the Museum's collections. They
will vary widely in scale, principle of selection, and style of
display.
Among
the installations will be a consideration of the sharp opposition
between the utopian visions set forth by Dada and Surrealism, on the
one hand, and by the radical abstraction of artists such as Piet
Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich, on
the other; surveys of art concerned with war and of art that sought
to persuade a mass public through political propaganda, social
protest, or advertising; an exploration of the formal device of
transparency in a wide variety of mediums; an experimental
presentation of the photography of Walker Evans together with
related work by his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors;
displays of furniture and architecture that embodied the domestic
ideals that arose in the wake of the two World Wars; and a
reconsideration of anti-modernist modem art--vigorous conservative
reactions to radical modernist avant-gardes. Several smaller
installations will be devoted to such diverse subjects as the
etchings of Giorgio Morandi and the tradition of subtly varied
series in American idealist photography.
The
goal of Cycle II is simultaneously to emphasize the richness and
variety of modern art as it is represented in the Museum's
collections and to evoke the dissenting goals, philosophies, and
traditions that brought these works into being. To this end, an
unusually intensive schedule of panels, symposia, and gallery talks
featuring contemporary artists is planned.
